Employee behavior and company stock ownership

This thesis explores the possible reasons behind the popularity of company stock ownership by closely examining data from a company that distributes company stock to many of its employees.; The first chapter, Company Stock Ownership and Turnover, explores the possibility that firms may encourage company stock ownership to reduce turnover among employees. Evidence suggests that employees with higher levels of company stock ownership are less likely to voluntarily quit their jobs. How an employee came to own that stock also matters. A dollar of stock awarded by the company has different effects on the employee's quit probability than a dollar of stock purchased by her. Employee quit decisions are also influenced by the vesting schedule of her stocks holdings.; The second chapter, Pay Dispersion and Turnover, explores the possibility that employers may want to make sure that their most valuable employees are at the top of the pay distribution, and that they are awarded stock compensation. There is evidence that relative position in the pay scale matters, even after taking into account absolute levels of pay. Further, effects of pay dispersion and rank position on turnover depend on whether the pay is in the form of salary or company stock.; The third chapter looks at the influence of investment knowledge, investment confidence and investment methods on company stock ownership. It does this by examining gender and racial differences in purchasing decisions of company stock. Gender & Racial Differences in Company Stock Purchase finds statistically significant gender and racial differences in' investment preferences regarding company stock; and the differences are only apparent when taking into account interactions with education levels and investment methods.; The fourth chapter, Behavioral Theories Applied to Company Stock Ownership looks at two behavioral theories of personal investment: representativeness bias and peer effects. Company stock ownership may be popular because a lot of employees are investment novices and may be more prone to certain behavioral biases when investing in company stock.