Competition in Information Disclosure

We analyze a model of competition in Bayesian persuasion in which two or more senders vie for the patronage of a receiver by disclosing information about their respective proposal qualities. The model’s primitives that define the competitive environment are: the ex-ante correlation of senders’ proposal qualities; the respective ex-ante expected proposal qualities; and the number of competing senders. Based on the finding that each sender must face a payoff function with a linear structure in equilibria, we fully characterize the unique equilibrium. We then identify the effects of the primitives on senders’ disclosure strategies. We find that an increase in the ex-ante correlation has two opposing effects on the incentives for information disclosure. Full disclosure arises in the limit as the correlation approaches its maximum value if and only if there exists difference in expected qualities. Furthermore, we show that as the number of competing senders increases, each sender discloses information more aggressively, and full disclosure arises in the limit.