David Ellerman and Tej Gonza compare Yugoslav self-managed firms, UK employee ownership trusts, plywood cooperatives, Spanish Sociedades Laborales, and US ESOPs. Common ownership leaves workers with no recoupable claim on retained earnings. US ESOPs add individual capital accounts, then face lumpy repurchase obligations and sellouts that match new formations. The European Co-op ESOP uses a worker cooperative instead of a trust and recycles shares before account balances threaten the firm.
Employee-ownership advisors and owners weighing an ESOP, an employee ownership trust, or a worker cooperative can use the form-by-form failure modes, and the European Co-op ESOP design, to test whether a structure survives the next generation of employee-owners.
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