Releasing information in private-value second-price auctions

I investigate the incentives to release information in markets in which auctioneers running second-price auctions compete for buyers by releasing information about their products before buyers decide in which auction they wish to participate. I provide sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium in which both sellers release information even if there are only two buyers in the market. This result is in contrast to previous findings reported in the literature showing that the optimal decision for a monopolist facing a fixed set of two buyers is to not release any information. Thus, the results of the paper suggest that competition between auctioneers strengthens the incentives to release information in markets in which selling mechanisms are second-price auctions.