Policy Whitepaper on Employee Ownership

A new policy paper, Expanding Employee Ownership: Toward a Stronger American Economy, builds the case for employee ownership and proposes three rarely explored policy options for creating more of it.

Divestitures: Noting that "In 2016, public companies in the United States divested almost $100 billion worth of subsidiary divisions," the authors argue that a portion of those sales could result in employee-owned companies if legislation created appropriate tax treatment or if Congress established Employee Ownership Investment Corporations to facilitate such transactions.

Private equity sales: Facilitating the sale of the portfolio companies of private equity firms to employees would create another new channel for new employee ownership.

Employee ownership in public companies could be facilitated by improving the tax incentives for broad-based equity compensation plans.