A previous version of this working paper was originally published in June 2013
Supersedes Working Paper 15-10/R - Stress Tests and Information Disclosure
In our model, disclosure can destroy risk-sharing opportunities for banks (the Hirshleifer effect). Yet, in some cases, some level of disclosure is necessary for risk sharing to occur. We provide conditions under which optimal disclosure takes a simple form (e.g., full disclosure, no disclosure, or a cutoff rule). We also show that, in some cases, optimal disclosure takes a more complicated form (e.g., multiple cutoffs or nonmonotone rules), which we characterize. We relate our results to the Bayesian persuasion literature.