We study whether regulators should reveal stress test results that contain imperfect information about banks' financial health. Although disclosure restores market confidence in banks, it misclassifies some healthy banks as risky. This encourages banks to choose portfolios deemed safe by regulators, leading to model monoculture and making the financial system less diversified. Under the ex-ante optimal disclosure policy, the regulator addresses this tradeoff by fully revealing stress test results when adverse selection is very severe or very mild, but never disclosing the results otherwise.

ABSTRACT We develop a model of bailout stigma in which accepting a bailout signals a firm's balance‐sheet weakness and reduces its funding prospects. To avoid stigma, high‐quality firms withdraw from subsequent financing after receiving bailouts or refuse bailouts altogether to send a favorable signal. The former leads to a short‐lived stimulation followed by a market freeze even worse than if there were no bailout. The latter revives the funding market, albeit with delay, to the level achievable without any stigma and implements a constrained optimal outcome. A menu of multiple bailout programs compounds bailout stigma and exacerbates the market freeze.