New White Paper: Financing the Growth of Employee Ownership

In June of 2025, Lafayette Square Institute released a new white paper titled: “Financing the Growth of Employee Ownership: Policy Landscape Report” which examines employee ownership and the nature of the private financing gap—its sources, mechanics, and relevant policy interventions to date at the federal and state levels.

The analysis concludes by offering a menu of new policy opportunities at the state and federal levels to harness private institutional capital sources to create, grow, and sustain employee-owned companies.

The evidence is clear that employee ownership and ESOPs offer the chance to bolster our national competitiveness and productive capacity while creating generational wealth for American workers. We just need to spur our capital markets into making it happen.

Click Here to read our white paper

Lafayette Square Institute has released a short-form brief

In April of 2025, Lafayette Square Institute released a short-form brief, “Critical Industries and Employee Ownership: Assessing the Risks of Business Succession to U.S. National and Economic Security”

High-level takeaways:

· Business succession often results in a sale to a buyer not committed to domestic employment and production or even outright business closure.

· The “silver tsunami” of retiring baby boomers poses a risk to the U.S. industrial base, particularly in sectors designated as “critical industries” to national security.

· Evidence points to Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOPs) as a proven, bipartisan tool to mitigate these business succession risks while building generational wealth for American workers.

Policymakers have the opportunity to turn the demographic risks of business succession into a U.S. competitive advantage by accelerating the growth of employee ownership.

Click here to read our brief

Lafayette Square Institute’s 535 Insights Release

In February of 2025, Lafayette Square Institute released its inaugural version of 535 Insights. 535 Insights is a new analytics series investigating economic mobility tailored to the constituencies of all 535 members of Congress. Our inaugural version of the analysis explores economic mobility, housing affordability, and employee ownership statistics broken down by state and congressional district.

Click here to view all 535 Insights