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Strategic Disclosure and the Design of Attention

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  • Qian Cao
  • Yifei Sun

Abstract

An institution that cannot compel disclosure can still allocate exposure. We study two opposed advocates who select verifiable observations and a receiver who averages the selected record without correcting for selection. The institution commits exposure before the state and evidence are known; each withheld item's assigned weight expires. With commonly known pools and strictly opposed monotone preferences, all finite-game Nash equilibria produce one action and common cutoff. In large pools with a vanishing anchor, directional tail moments determine the implementing exposure share. Under common evidence laws, equal exposure implements every state. The institutional restriction matters: full within-camp reallocation induces extreme selection and, on a fixed support, eliminates state responsiveness. In a finite-state common-law benchmark, small reallocation separates disclosure cutoffs and changes implementing shares according to favorable-tail frequencies. Variation in these frequencies across states creates a positive local welfare cost even after exposure is optimized. Ex ante results bound the cost of commitment and identify information sufficient for limiting implementation. Separately, under linear payoffs, uniform item weights and continuous evidence laws on a compact state space, all Bayesian equilibria converge to the baseline outcome when advocates observe only their own samples and learn the state. Finite-pool results characterize a precision cost under common laws, balanced exposure, uniform weights and equal limiting camp sizes, and first corrections to exact risk-minimizing shares under additional regularity.

Suggested Citation

  • Qian Cao & Yifei Sun, 2026. "Strategic Disclosure and the Design of Attention," Papers 2608.27903, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2026.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2608.27903
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    References listed on IDEAS

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