The Shares Laboratory

Sponsored by the
Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing

For Institute studies, click HERE, for case studies/videos click HERE.

Overview of The Shares Laboratory

In April of 2023, the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing established the nation’s first academic research initiative dedicated to employee equity compensation and employee equity ownership in corporations. The Shares Laboratory will conduct research and policy analysis on company stock, stock options, employee stock purchase plans, and other equity shares in the workplace along with profit sharing and gain sharing. The Shares Lab gives equity compensation an address – a place in higher education where policy, practice, and impact will be closely monitored.

The Shares Lab will advance understanding of shares by:

• Monitoring the growth of  company-based equity compensation and equity ownership and its role in the economy;

• Analyzing federal policies relating to stock, stock options, and other shares;
• Conducting scholarly research on equity compensation and equity ownership in all of its forms;
• Proposing path-breaking innovations to extend shares to more employees; and
• Predicting how changes in equity access will affect different parts of the economy.

The Shares Lab will be the Institute’s flagship “big data” program, monitoring a rich array of government databases, public records, and private surveys. Its reports aim to be the gold standard for basic research on company-based employee equity ownership and equity compensation. The Lab has created a statistical model of the U.S. economy that breaks down the labor force by industry, workplace practices, equity access, income, wealth, and personal characteristics. This model will enable researchers to conduct experiments on critical questions.

The Shares Laboratory will issue quarterly reports beginning in the first quarter of 2023 that will be released to the public after a three month embargo period.

> View the press release announcing The Shares Laboratory

Quarterly Reports

The quarterly reports of The Shares Laboratory are available for download below.  

First Quarterly Report, January-March 2023:

Second Quarterly Report, April-June 2023:

Third Quarterly Report, July-September 2023

Fourth Quarterly Report, October-December 2023:

Contact The Shares Laboratory

As of July of 2024, Professor William Castellano, a member of the Lab's research team, will direct The Shares Laboratory. He can be reached at castellano@smlr.rutgers.edu.

For information on The Shares Laboratory and for speakers to present the findings of the Lab, please email our administrator, Bethany Dennis at bethany.dennis@rutgers.edu.

For press inquiries, please contact our Director of Media Relations, Steve Flamisch, at steve.flamisch@smlr.rutgers.edu or 848.252.9011 (cell).