근로자의 최적 위험분산을 위한 원금보장형 우리사주제도(ESOP) 설계 방안

An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) allows employees to purchase and hold shares in the company at favorable conditions. ESOP is popular because it offers incentives to work, and the profit from a higher stock price helps employees accumulate savings. But problems arise when the company is in danger of bankruptcy. In this case, employees can be exposed to dual risks: They may not be able to recover unpaid wages; and stock ownership will incur investment losses. In the volatile Korean stock market, the potential losses from stock price declines are pointed as the biggest obstacle for ESOP to be used even further. As an alternative, this study proposes a “principal-protected ESOP” which spreads the dual risks and helps employees save money more stably. Based on the mean-variance expected utility model, we show that the principal-protected ESOP significantly increases utility for employees. We also present a desirable principal protected ESOP structure that takes into account moral hazard to provide optimal utility to employees. Considering the cost increases from moral hazard because of the principal protection structure, an ESOP that has partial principal protection and distributes some investment returns to the ESOP provider (financial firm) is found to provide the highest expected utility to employees. We hope the results of this study will contribute to a more incentive-compatible ESOP system and provide fresh policy implications for Korea’s ESOP development.