Benchmarking Employee Participation in Profits and Enterprise Results in the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States
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Virtual Centre for Employee Financial Participation
Abstract
This Report provides an overview of the development of employee financial participation, i.e., employee share ownership and profit sharing, across the EU-27, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America as of January 2024. Against the background of the policy development of the past 35 years, it highlights the growth of financial participation over the last decade using the most recent cross-country data available, i.e., the 2021 CRANET Survey, the 2019 European Company Survey and the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey, which also show its potential positive impact on employment and productivity. However, our analysis also shows that positive distributive effects in the EU and the US are called into question by the concentration of capital ownership and capital income at the top in the two regions.
The report provides a like-for-like comparison of all countries under consideration including 29 individual country profiles. Countries are ranked using three indicators, i.e., (i) legal framework, (ii) fiscal incentives, and (iii) political support / social dialogue. It argues that incentives should be extended to all enterprises including those from the social economy. Policy recommendations are provided at the national level and to the European Commission, amongst other for a “Common European ESOP regime”. Finally, the report highlights the complementarity of employee and consumer financial participation in the context of the “Proximity and Social Economy industrial ecosystem” and the Energy Transition.
Acknowledgements
This report has been prepared by the consortium of the Kelso Institute Europe at Berlin and Stiftung Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) with contributions by the editors and Axel Czaya, Joseph Blasi, Tej Gonza, Alban Ha-shani, Rüdiger Kabst, Douglas Kruse, Jasper Lüke, Wenzel Matiaske, John D. Menke, Thibault Mirabel, Graeme Nuttall, Denis Suarsana and the network of affiliated experts.