The past two decades have seen a considerable increase in the amount of public information providedby policymakers. Are such disclosures desirable? Or is it instead preferable to use such information tocondition a policy instrument, such a tax or an interest rate? This paper studies the relative merits of eachmeans to use a policymaker’s information in a flexible class of economies that feature dispersed information,and payoff and learning externalities. I provide conditions for when the exclusive use of a policy instrumentor disclosure is optimal. I then relate these to differences in the equilibrium and socially optimal use ofinformation. I conclude with a series of applications that show how my results apply to common beautycontest models, competitive economies, and a broad class of macroeconomic models, among others.