Multi-Sender Disclosure with Costs
Theoretical Economics
2026-01-16 v1
Abstract
We study voluntary disclosure with multiple biased senders who may bear costs for disclosing or concealing their private information. Under relevant assumptions, disclosures are strategic substitutes under a disclosure cost but complements under a concealment cost. Additional senders thus impede any sender's disclosure under a disclosure cost but promote it under a concealment cost. In the former case, a decision maker can be harmed by additional senders, even when senders have opposing interests. The effects under both kinds of message costs turn on how a sender, when concealing his information, expects others' messages to systematically sway the decision maker's belief.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.10048,
title = {Multi-Sender Disclosure with Costs},
author = {Navin Kartik and Frances Xu Lee and Wing Suen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.10048},
year = {2026}
}