Dr. Avner Ben-Ner was recognized for his entire body of work at the 2020 Workshop in Honor of Louis O. Kelso. See slides from the presentation here. Avner Ben-Ner is a Professor in the Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a Senior Scholar … Read More
Dr. Avner Ben-Ner was recognized for his entire body of work at the 2020 Workshop in Honor of Louis O. Kelso. See slides from the presentation using the Resource Link below. See the video presentation here. Avner Ben-Ner is a Professor in the Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies in the Carlson School of Management at … Read More
At the center of the ongoing debate about the causes and cures of inequality in America today is the vast difference in wealth between owners and workers. As many have noted, that gap was not nearly as large in the middle of the twentieth century as it has become in the first two decades of the 21st century, where owners and other executives make many multiples of what workers make – largely through grants of stock in lieu of salary.
From Ted Howard, co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, and Marjorie Kelly, author of The Divine Right of Capital and Owning our Future, The Making of a Democratic Economy is a clarion call for a movement ready to get serious about transforming our economic system. Illuminating the principles of a democratic economy through the stories of on-the-ground community wealth builders and … Read More
The mainstream economic theory that guides corporations in the US only works if markets are perfectly efficient. This flawed theory has led to corporate decision-making that centers shareholders above all else, including other stakeholders (e.g., workers), long-term business growth, and economic health. This shareholder-first ideology is referred to as “shareholder primacy,” which does not reflect … Read More
In this book, Gregory K. Dow asks the question: “Why are labor managed firms rare in modern economies?” Dow emphasizes the fact that capital is alienable while labor is inalienable. This distinction, together with market imperfections, explains the rarity of labor-managed firms. This book uses modern microeconomics, develops formal models, exploits up-to-date empirical research, and … Read More
In 2015, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation engaged the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, to conduct a qualitative study examining the asset building impacts of employee ownership for low- and moderate-income employees and their families.
The origins of the next radical economy is rooted in a tradition that has empowered people for centuries and is now making a comeback. A new feudalism is on the rise. While monopolistic corporations feed their spoils to the rich, more and more of us are expected to live gig to gig. But, as Nathan … Read More
Do firms with employee ownership (EO) programs exhibit greater employment stability in the face of economic downturns? In particular, are firms with EO programs less likely to lay off workers during negative shocks? In this article, we examine the relationship between EO programs and employment stability in the United States using longitudinal Form 5500‐CompuStat matched … Read More
These class notes were written by John Pencavel of the Stanford University Department of Economics for a 2018 undergraduate class in Labor Economics. They were intended to provide the students with background on worker owned and worker managed firms. Students were expected to read these notes before Dr. Pencavel’s lecture.
The aim of this paper is to compute and describe the conditions of an optimal employee ownership contract between an employer and an ambiguity‐averse employee. We then introduce ambiguity aversion in the baseline model of Aubert et al. (2014) using the multiple prior preferences of Gilboa and Schmeidler (1989) and its extension proposed by Maccheroni … Read More
The benefits of employee ownership as a strategy for achieving broad-based prosperity are well documented—but the growing field of impact investing has yet to fully recognize the key opportunity employee ownership presents for tackling economic inequality. In this Fifty by Fifty research brief, Mary Ann Beyster explores the existing landscape of employee ownership opportunities for … Read More
The National Center for Employee Ownership has released results from the first phase of an ongoing research project that compares the economic well-being of employee-owners early in their careers with that of other young workers.
This handbook investigates ‘member-owned’ organizations, whether consumer co-operatives, agricultural and producer co-operatives, worker co-operatives, mutual building societies, friendly societies, credit unions, solidarity organizations, mutual insurance companies, or employee-owned companies. Such organizations can be owned by the consumers, producers, or employees—whether through single-stakeholder or multi-stakeholder ownership. ‘Employee-owned’ business means businesses where a significant proportion of the … Read More
Employee ownership is a situation in which employees have an ownership stake in the firm where they work, through holdings of firm stock. It is a channel through which employees share in the profits of the firm and can vote on important firm decisions and otherwise have increased participation in workplace decisions.
When Workers Become Owners Professors Joseph Blasi, Richard Freeman, and Douglas Kruse explain how sharing the ownership or profits of a company with workers can improve productivity, pay, and work life quality – all while reducing economic inequality. Bonus – Jump on the Bandwagon Professors Blasi, Freeman, and Kruse stay post-interview to discuss why trade unions, business schools, and … Read More
This paper by Jared Bernstein shows that employee ownership appears to have a small equalizing impact on wealth and wage distributions.
Can We Do It Ourselves focuses on economic philosophy with an emphasis on the concept of economic democracy. The film helps viewers understand the difference between a market economy in which consumer demand drives a company’s supply of goods and services, and a capitalist economy in which private owners control production and hold a right to … Read More
The Economics of Cooperative Enterprises is designed as a challenging integrative experience course for undergraduates. Students will be asked to retrospectively analyze their experiences as workers and consumers, evaluating the impact of organizational forms and industry structure. How do cooperative enterprises (including those on campus such as the People’s Market, Earthfoods, and Campus Design and … Read More
Course Description: The corporation is a controversial institution. It is the central institution that introduces us to the concept of capitalism. Among its virtues are the provision of jobs for employees and wealth for owners.
Employee ownership is often used not only as a reward management tool but also as an entrenchment mechanism. The literature suggests that good managers use employee ownership as a reward management tool, whereas bad managers implement it for entrenchment, thus suggesting the existence of an equilibrium level of employee ownership. The contributions of this paper … Read More
In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of … Read More
This paper analyzes participation decisions in employee stock purchase plans. These plans allow employees to buy company stock at a discount from the market price and resell it immediately for a sure profit. Although an average employee stands to gain $3,079 annually, only 30% of individuals take advantage of this risk-free opportunity. Participation is more … Read More
Ownership and decision-making are key issues in the economic restructuring taking place as economies struggle to emerge from the Great Recession, and technological change and globalization continue to place new demands on workers and firms. Corporate, labor, and policy leaders are increasingly recognizing the potential role of employee ownership, cooperatives, profit sharing, and other ways … Read More
This study, which consists of two essays, examines the performance effects of a deferred equity plan on both individual employee and business unit outcomes. The first essay investigates the effects of deferred compensation plan characteristics on voluntary turnover decisions, using detailed data on store-level employees of a large retail firm. Overall, I find that employees … Read More