A key feature of communication with evidence is skepticism: to the extent possible, a receiver will attribute any incomplete disclosure to the sender concealing unfavorable evidence. The degree of skepticism depends on how much evidence the sender is expected to possess. I characterize when a...

Certifiers often base their decisions on a mixture of information, some of which is voluntarily disclosed by applicants, and some of which they acquire by way of tests or otherwise. We study the interplay between the information acquisition of certifiers and the information disclosure of...

We develop and test a theory of blind disclosure. A risk-averse sender chooses whether to disclose information based on a preliminary, private signal. In the unique equilibrium, contrary to the literature's canonical unraveling result, senders disclose only if their preliminary signal exceeds a...

Unfavorable news are often delivered under the disguise of vagueness. Our theory-driven laboratory experiment investigates this strategic use of vagueness in voluntary disclosure and asks whether there is scope for policy to improve information transmission. We find that vagueness is profitably...

Consider a three-tier industry with a monopolist supplying an essential input to a manufacturer, which in turn sells its product to final consumers through two differentiated retailers. Throughout the supply chain, contracts are linear and secret. In this setting, upon receiving an...

How does the prospect of sale affect the seller's incentive to investigate — to acquire socially valuable information about the asset? How do the disclosure rules of contract law influence the investigation decision? Shavell (1994) showed that, if sellers and buyers are symmetrically informed,...

The theory of voluntary disclosure of information posits that market forces lead senders to disclose information through a process of unravelling. This prediction requires that receivers hold correct beliefs and, in equilibrium, make adverse inferences about non-disclosed information. Previous...

We consider a standard persuasion problem in which the receiver’s action and the state of the world are both one-dimensional. Fully characterizing optimal signals when utilities are non-linear is a daunting task. Instead, we develop a general approach to understanding a key qualitative...

This study tests whether disclosing a trader's identity dampens or stimulates subsequent trading volume based on the trader's reputation for being informed. While a reputation for being informed makes markets less liquid, thus inhibiting subsequent trade ("illiquidity effect"), the information...

We examine a dynamic disclosure model in which the value of a firm follows a random walk. Every period, with some probability, the manager learns the value and decides whether to disclose it. The manager maximizes the market perception of the firm's value, which is based on disclosed...