This paper compares the incentives of a party to acquire information prior to negotiating contractual terms with a second party. Two legal regimes are compared: disclosing information before negotiations start is mandatory or it remains voluntary. By assumption, information can only truthfully be disclosed but, under voluntary disclosure, the fact that no evidence was found cannot credibly be communicated. If the party that may acquire information enjoys encompassing bargaining power, the incentives to acquire information will be excessive relative to first best quite generally. Otherwise, more surprisingly, acquisition incentives turn out insufficient even under voluntary disclosure for an informational setting referred to as selfish acquisition. For another setting, referred to as cooperative acquisition, the incentives under voluntary disclosure are even lower as compared with mandatory disclosure. All results hold independently of the underlying bargaining structure and equilibrium selection as exclusive use of constraints is made that hold for equilibrium payoffs from any bargaining game.

中文翻译：

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强制性与自愿性披露下获取信息的激励措施

本文比较了一方在与第二方进行合同条款谈判之前获取信息的动机。比较了两种法律制度：在谈判开始之前必须强制公开信息或自愿保留信息。通过假设，只能真实地披露信息，但是在自愿披露下，无法可信地传达没有发现证据的事实。如果可能获取信息的一方享有包容性的讨价还价能力，那么获取信息的动机通常相对于最佳第一人来说是过多的。否则，更令人惊讶的是，即使是在自愿披露的情况下，对于一种称为自私获取的信息环境，获取激励措施也仍然不够。对于另一种设置，称为合作获取，与强制披露相比，自愿披露的激励措施甚至更低。所有结果均独立于潜在的讨价还价结构和均衡选择而定，因为排他性地使用了约束条件，以保持任何讨价还价博弈的均衡收益。