This paper provides novel evidence on the effects of employee stock ownership (ESO), using new panel data on Japanese ESO plans for a highly representative sample of publicly-traded firms in Japan (covering more than 75% of all firms listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange) over 1989-2013. Unlike most prior studies, we focus on the effects of changes in varying attributes of existing ESO—the effects on the intensive margin. Our fixed effect estimates show that an increase in the strength of the existing ESO plans measured by stake per employee results in statistically significant productivity gains. Furthermore, such productivity gains are found to lead to profitability gains since wage gains from ESO plans are statistically significant yet rather modest.
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