Policy Uncertainty and Information Flows: Evidence from Pension Reform Expectations

We examine how workers’ expectations about pension reform vary with proximity to reforms, information availability and worker characteristics. Using newly collected data, we find that (1) expectations about reform are revised upward by about 10 percentage points in the year prior to a reform, from a median of 50%, regardless of whether the reform is announced; (2) expectations increase more the stronger the media activity about imminent reforms; (3) the effect of information on expectations varies systematically with characteristics that proxy cognitive ability and information value; (4) expectations do not converge as a result of reform announcements or implementations.