Trasparenza istituzionale e aspettative di disoccupazione. Teoria ed evidenza comparata dai paesi mediterranei e dai lavoratori maturi

The aim of this study is to identify the short- and long-run macroeconomic determinants of unemployment expectations in the presence of asymmetric information between public and private agents, informational shocks, and different degrees of transparency in institutional communication. To achieve this objective, a New Keynesian model with rational expectations is proposed, in which partially informed households and firms receive an informational signal that may be noisy, while the government and the central bank have access to a complete information set. The model is validated using time-series data for three Mediterranean countries (France, Italy, and Spain) and for older workers. The results show that, regardless of whether the Taylor principle is satisfied, if public agents transmit all available information to private agents without communicative ambiguity, the model admits a unique and stable equilibrium path along which the so-called Transparency Paradox may emerge. Otherwise, the model’s dynamics become unpredictable in terms of the existence and multiplicity of equilibrium, and inflation expectations take on a potentially crucial role in determining the equilibrium. Appropriate policy recommendations are discussed.