Summary
In an analysis of data from the 2008-2020 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a large biennial survey of Americans over the age of 50, we find no evidence of ESOP “wage substitution,” even when attempting to account for the possible effects of information we do not know about workers who do and do not participate in ESOPs or firms that do and not offer them to their employees. We propose possible explanations for these results.