Dividend and Corporate Taxation in an Agency Model of the Firm
构建了一个代理模型，解释股息税如何导致经理人保留盈余进行低效投资，产生重大效率损失，而公司税则影响较小，挑战了新古典理论的直觉。
Recent evidence on the effect of dividend taxes on firm behavior is inconsistent with neoclassical theories of dividend and corporate taxation. We develop a simple agency model in which managers and shareholders have conflicting interests to explain the evidence. In this model, dividend taxation induces managers to undertake unproductive investments by retaining earnings, and creates a first-order deadweight cost. In contrast, corporate taxes do not distort the manager's payout decision and may only create second-order efficiency costs. Corporate income taxation may therefore be a more efficient way to generate revenue than dividend taxation, challenging existing intuitions based on neoclassical models.