Markets versus Mechanisms

Abstract We establish limitations to the usage of direct revelation mechanisms (DRMs) by corporations seeking decision-relevant information in economies with securities markets. In this environment, posting a DRM increases the informed agent’s outside option: if the agent rejects the DRM, he convinces the market he is uninformed, and he can aggressively trade with low price impact, thereby generating large (off-equilibrium) trading gains. This endogenous outside option may make using a DRM to screen uninformed agents impossible. When screening is possible, solely relying on the market for information is optimal if the increase in outside option is sufficiently large. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.