Auditing, disclosure, and verification in decentralized decision problems

We study the relative performance of disclosure and auditing in decentralized institutions. We consider the information transmission problem between two decision makers who take actions in sequence at two decision dates. The first decision maker has private information about a state of nature that is relevant for both decisions, and sends a message to the second. The second decision maker can commit to only observe the message (disclosure), or can retain the option to observe the action of the first decision maker (auditing) or, at some cost, to verify the state. In equilibrium, state verification will never occur and the second decision maker effectively chooses between auditing and disclosure.