Competing with Equivocal Information

This paper studies strategic disclosure by multiple senders competing for prizes awarded by a single receiver. They decide whether to disclose a piece of information that is both verifiable and equivocal (it can influence the receiver both ways). The standard unraveling argument breaks down: if the commonly known probability that her information is favorable is high, a single sender never discloses. Competition restores full disclosure only if some of the senders are sufficiently unlikely to have favorable information. When the senders are uncertain about each other's strength, however, all symmetric equilibria approach full disclosure as the number of candidates increases.