The paper examines the extent and potential reasons for non-exercise of ‘in the money’ stock options, drawing on employee-level data from the UK Save-As-You-Earn stock option plan. 14 per cent of participants choose not to exercise, and failure to exercise in these circumstances can be costly in terms of foregone increases in wealth. Lesser experience of the option plan, perceived lack of financial knowledge, and greater reliance on friends for advice is associated with failure to exercise. These findings offer challenges to the use of sophisticated reward and benefit schemes by companies when potential participants lack financial capabilities, and add to the literature by showing that financial literacy can remain problematic even when employees have surmounted initial obstacles to joining plans.

该论文利用英国“即赚即存”股票期权计划中的员工级数据，研究了不行使“价内”股票期权的程度和潜在原因。14% 的参与者选择不锻炼，在这种情况下不锻炼可能会导致财富的增加。期权计划的较少经验、缺乏金融知识以及更多地依赖朋友的建议与未能行使有关。当潜在参与者缺乏财务能力时，这些发现对公司使用复杂的奖励和福利计划提出了挑战，并通过表明即使员工克服了加入计划的最初障碍，金融知识仍然存在问题，从而增加了文献。