Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-Based Stock Options.

Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-Based Stock Options, edited by Douglas L. Kruse, Richard B. Freeman, and Joseph R. Blasi, is available from the University of Chicago Press for $99.00.

Shared capitalism is a system in which workers are partial owners of their firms and thus, in effect, both employees and stockholders. Profit-sharing arrangements and gain-sharing bonuses, which tie compensation directly to a firm's performance, reflect this relatively new attitude toward labor.

In this NBER Conference Report, the contributors discuss the effects of the trend toward shared capitalism on workers and firms. The focus is on four main areas: the fraction of firms participating in shared capitalism programs in the United States and abroad; the factors that enable these firms to overcome classic free-rider...