Have you heard the news? How real-life expectations react to publicity

As evidence is accumulating that subjective expectations influence behavior and that these expectations are sometimes biased, it becomes policy-relevant to know how to influence individuals' expectations. Information in the media is likely to affect how people picture the future. This paper studies the role of public information dissemination, or publicity, in a real-life expectations formation process. For this purpose, an exceptional Dutch dataset on monthly expectations regarding the future eligibility age for old age social security is analyzed. On average, the publicity reaction in eligib... Mehr ...