The expansion of share ownership amongst employees advances a number of important economic priorities identified by the Federal Government, and has the potential to give Australia a stronger and fairer economy.

Rewarding employees with increased ownership in the companies in which they work increases productivity, advances flexibility with fairness in the workplace and builds a national savings culture. However, to secure these benefits, it is critical that employee share ownership is extended widely to ordinary workers rather than concentrated at the top levels of management.

Employee share plans are frequently criticized for concentrating risk, for duplicating superannuation and for being regressive, but carefully designed policy can address each of these shortcomings.

Existing Australian policy towards employee share ownership lacks this careful design. This report compares the employee share policies of the UK, the United States and Australia. It finds that, despite the wider economic benefits of employee share plans, ordinary Australian workers have little or no incentive to participate in them.