Disclosure by Groups

This paper introduces a model of group communication, in which a group of senders with conflicting interests collectively communicate with a receiver through the disclosure or non-disclosure of information about a relevant state. Collective disclosure decisions are reached via the aggregation of group members’ disclosure recommendations via a pre-determined deliberation procedure. In contrast with classic results from single-agent disclosure, (sequential) equilibria of the group disclosure game typically do not involve full disclosure. We investigate the relation between the group’s deliberation procedure and features of equilibrium communication. In particular, we characterize changes in the deliberation procedure that increase a group’s informativeness; and show that the receiver interprets group messages less favorably for group members who have relatively more power.