Andreas Kleiner (University of Bonn)

From Design to Disclosure

(joint with Nageeb Ali and Kun Zhang)

Abstract. This paper studies sender-receiver games in which the sender discloses evidence to a receiver who then offers an allocation and transfers. Our framework encompasses monopoly pricing, bargaining over policies, and insurance markets. In this setting, we characterize the full set of equilibrium payoffs. Our main result establishes that any payoff profile that can be achieved through information design can also be supported in an equilibrium of the disclosure game. Hence, in the contracting environments that we study, our analysis offers a microfoundation for information design and suggests that the gap between information design and disclosure is negligible.