Published papers

This study analyzes how a tax system, in which expenses associated with business activities are only partially deductible for tax purposes, affects corporate behavior, including the effort level and compensation contracts. Since these activities create firm value and benefit the agent due to the inherent characteristics of consumption goods, the principal faces a trade-off between letting agents work with high-powered incentives and the tax payments resulting from non-deductible expenses. Further, we consider a government's behavior to analyze the case in which the government can flexibly change the non-deductible ratio. We find that the impacts of the corporate tax rate and the agent's preference for activities that incur tax non-deductible expenses depend on whether the non-deductible ratio is flexible. This result partially explains why various countries apply different rules for non-deductible expenses.

This paper considers how a manager decides to disclose or withhold segment information in a capital market setting. In particular, we develop a multi-period model in which a manager in each period decides how to allocate her effort between two businesses. The profit earned in each segment is determined by the manager’s effort and ability as well as each segment’s market profitability and inherent uncertainty. In this setting, in contrast to the expectation of segment disclosure being withheld due to conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders, we identify the conditions under which the manager rationally withholds segment information and achieves higher social welfare. In a setting where the manager is concerned about the current stock price, disclosing more disaggregated information to the stock market does not necessarily lead to more efficient monitoring. The capital market values various segment earnings differently, and in response to this valuation, a rational manager may greatly alter her behavior, leading to inefficient outcomes.