Optimal Firm (Non-)Disclosure
23 Pages Posted: 5 Feb 2016
Date Written: January 16, 2016
Abstract
We re-examine the seminal persuasion model of Dye (1985), focusing on the contracting power of current shareholders. Current shareholders determine the disclosure policy of a manager, who may be informed about the firm's value. Current shareholders desire higher future stock prices and dislike volatility. We show that the optimal policy is complete non-disclosure. The key intuition is that the disclosure policy cannot affect the expected future stock price, but can affect price volatility, which is minimized under non-disclosure. Our results extend to cheap talk settings and Bayesian persuasion games.
Keywords: Optimal contracts, disclosure policy, commitment
JEL Classification: C72, D80, D83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation