GCOE Discussion Paper Series
Global COE Program

Human Behavior and Socioeconomic Dynamics
Discussion Paper No. 358

Happiness Before and After an Election:
An Analysis Based on a Daily Survey
around Japan’s 2009 Election

Yusuke Kinari, Fumio Ohtake, Miles Kimball,
Shoko Yamane, and Yoshiro Tsutsui

February 2015

GCOE Secretariat
Graduate School of Economics
OSAKA UNIVERSITY
1-7 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-0043, Japan

Happiness Before and After an Election:
An Analysis Based on a Daily Survey
around Japan's 2009 Election§
Yusuke Kinari (Kyushu University)
Fumio Ohtake† (Osaka University)
Miles Kimball§ (University of Michigan)
Shoko Morimoto‡ (Osaka University)
Yoshiro Tsutsui¶ (Konan University)§

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of
Behavioral Economics and Finance. We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Sayuri
Shiraishi for her comments.

Faculty of Economics, Kyushu University, 6-19-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8581,
e-mail: kinari@econ.kyushu-u.ac.jp, Phone: +81-92-642-2493†
Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, 6-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, 567-0047
Japan, e-mail: ohtake@iser.osaka-u.ac.jp, Phone: +81-6-6879-8572§
Department of Economics and Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI,48109, USA, e-mail: mkimball@umich.edu, Phone: +1-734- 764-2375‡
Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University; 1-7, Machikaneyama, Toyonaka 560-0043 Japan,
e-mail: shoko.morimoto.12@gmail.com¶
Faculty of Economics, Konan University, 1-8-9 Okamoto, Higashinada-ku, Kobe, 658-8501,
e-mail: tsutsui@center.konan-u.ac.jp, Phone & Fax: +81-78-435-2920
1

Abstract
This paper investigates whether the Japanese voters became happy and/or unhappy due
to the results of the General Election in 2009. We conducted a daily web survey forseven days before and after the election, obtaining 1068 responses. Estimating a fixed
effects model, we found that supporters of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), thewinner, became significantly happier, and supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party ofJapan (LDP) and New Komeito, the losers, became significantly unhappier on the day
following the election. However, happiness returned to the previous level in one or twodays, implying people adapted to the news very quickly. Dividing those who support thepolicies of DPJ into two groups, those who expect material benefits from the victory of
DPJ and those who do not, we demonstrated that the reason why the supporters of thewinner (DPJ) felt happy was not because they obtained material benefits from thechange of government. We also found that the happiness level of those whose
expectation of the election results were realized did not change, while that of those
whose expectation differed from the reality changed substantially. In a word, only
unexpected results matter.

Keywords: happiness, election, expectation, survey, JapanJEL classification: I31, D72

2

1. Introduction
The goal of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms by which election results affecthappiness. This topic has not been examined up until now.
Though the economics of happiness has a long tradition stretching back to Van Praag’s
Leiden school, it was only after 2000 that many economists began to be attracted by this topic.
Since then, research has extended into various fields including the study of political processes.1
Among these studies, Frey and Stutzer have elucidated how democracy is important tohappiness, analyzing the political institutions in Switzerland (Frey and Stutzer 2002a, Frey2008). Recently, Bok has opened up the study of the politics of happiness（Bok, 2010). This
paper can be regarded as part of the field of “politics and happiness,” since it analyzes therelationship between elections and happiness.
We investigate whether news of election results affects the happiness of voters. Kimball etal. (2006) examined the effects of hurricane Katrina on the happiness of U.S. residents, andUchida et al. (2013) and Ishino et al. (2013) investigated the effect of the Great East Japan
Earthquake on the happiness of Japanese people. Since elections are macro events, the present
study can be regarded as an investigation of the effect of macro news on happiness.

1

For a survey on the economics of happiness, see Frey and Stucher (2002a, b), Bruni and Porta(2005), Di Tella and MacCulloch (2006) and Clark et al. (2008).
3

In the past there have been few studies that investigate whether elections affect happiness.2
The few exceptions we know of are Gilbert et al. (1998), Wilson et al. (2003), Tsutsui et al.
(2010), and Kimball et al. (2014). This study tries to add to this sparse literature. In addition, we
analyze two problems that the previous studies did not address. The first of these is hedonic
adaptation. People have a baseline level of happiness from which their happiness temporarily
jumps up (down) when good (bad) news arrives, but their happiness returns to the individual
baseline rather quickly (Kimball and Willis, 2006). Personal news has about five times theinfluence of macro news, and the influence and the impact of personal news is more persistent;
in contrast, the impact of macro news lasts only about two days (Kimball et al. 2007). Therefore,
although election results might affect voters’ happiness just after the election, we would expect
happiness to revert to its previous level immediately. Of course, the extent of the influence, thesize, and the time that the effects last all depend on the nature of the macro news. For example,
Hurricane Katrina lowered Americans’ happiness for three weeks (Kimball et al. 2006).
Wilson et al. (2003) investigated the impact of the U.S. presidential election in 2000. They
asked 52 college students, who reported themselves to be deeply interested in politics, about
their happiness one day after Gore conceded the election. Bush supporters were significantly
happier than Gore supporters.
2

Of course, elections have been studied in numerous papers, such as Vergne (2009), Hindriks andLockwood (2009), and in Japan Hori (1996) and Taniguchi (2005). However, there has been only alimited number of studies that relate elections and happiness.
4

On the other hand, Gilbert et al. (1998) analyzed happiness among 57 voters in a 1994
gubernatorial election in Texas one month after the election, and found no evidence that winners
became happier than losers.
Using a monthly survey, Tsutsui et al. (2010) examined whether the landslide victory of theKoizumi Cabinet in the general election on September 11, 2005 made Japanese people happy
and/or unhappy. The authors found no significant changes in the happiness of supporters andnon-supporters of the ruling parties between August and September. However, they found thatthe happiness of supporters of winners (losers) tends to rise (fall), although the results are
statistically insignificant; this suggests that Japanese people’s happiness was only slightly
affected by the election results.
Kimball et al. (2014) looked at the dynamic response of happiness to outcomes of the 2008
and 2012 U.S. Presidential elections. They developed a model to show how individual's
emotions reacted to electoral outcomes, based on the model of Kimball and Willis (2006). They
found that the strength of political preferences, as well as prior expectations about the election
outcome, determined the size of the change in happiness from before to after the election. They
also found that individuals hedonically adapt very quickly.
These studies suggest that adaptation is a critical factor, and that election results generally
affect happiness only for a short time following the election. To examine this hypothesis, we

5

conducted a daily survey that covers the period before and after a voting day. This enables us toelucidate not only whether election results affect happiness just after the election, but also how
this effect disappears over time. Specifically, we conducted a daily survey about the election for
the House of Representatives conducted on August 30, 2009, obtaining 1068 responses frompeople of various generations. This election was a historic event in that the Liberal Democratic
Party of Japan (LDP) and New Komeito, then in power, lost in a landslide, and the Democratic
Party of Japan (DPJ) took power. This was a very rare event in Japan. We analyze whether the
supporters for LDP and New Komeito became unhappier, and whether supporters for DPJ
became happier, and measure the speed of hedonic adaptation for both.
We also investigate why election results affect happiness. Traditional economics holds
that peoples’ utility is determined by the material benefits they enjoy. To examine whether thismaterialism applies to happiness as well, we compare the happiness of two groups – one who
expected to receive material benefit from a DPJ victory, and another who did not. Traditional
economics would predict that the former group experienced a more positive change in happinessthan the latter group.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. In section 2, the election and our survey are
explained. Section 3 reports our main results. In section 4 we check the robustness of our main
results. Specifically, we use the data on changes in happiness instead of the level of happiness6and check if the main results are maintained. We also separate the sample into those whose
election predictions were correct and incorrect, and check if the results apply only for the lattergroup. In section 5, we investigate the reason why the election results made people happy andunhappy. Section 6 concludes.
2. The election and our survey
2.1 The election on August 30, 2009
The election in our study is the 45th general election of the Japanese House of Representatives,
conducted on August 30, 2009. In this election, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost powerand Democratic Party Japan (DPJ) won a majority and took power. Since the founding of the
LDP in 1955, this was the first election in which the LDP did not win a plurality, and only thesecond instance in which it did not control the legislature.3 Thus, this election was the mostdramatic one in Japan’s recent history.4 Just before the election, Mr. Aso was prime ministerand the LDP held 303 seats (out of a total of 480), while its coalition partner New Komeito
shared 31. After the election, these parties’ seats shrank to 119 and 21, respectively. The DPJ,
which held only 112 seats before the election, held 308 afterward.

2.2 Our survey

3
4

The Hosokawa cabinet, a non-LDP coalition, briefly took power in 1993.
The LDP won 294 seats in the next general election, in December 2012, returning to power.
7

We conducted a web-survey from August 27 to September 2, a period that includes the day ofthe election. The respondents were 1068 (male=486, female=582) eligible voters from all overJapan. While some questions, including “How happy are you?” and “Did you sleep well lastnight?” were asked every day during the survey period, other questions varied from day to day.
Specifically, on August 27, the first day of the survey, we asked about the attributes of
respondents such as scholastic performance and income, and on the 28th we asked about theirparty sympathies, election predictions, and desired outcome. On August 31, the day after theelection, we asked whether respondents voted or not, which party they voted for, and whether
the results were in line with their expectations.
Table 1 shows the number of supporters of each party. 24% supported the DPJ, while 13%
supported the LDP.

3. How did the happiness of respondents change according to their political allegiance?
The main aim of this paper is to determine whether supporters of the deposed parties, LDP and
New Komeito, became unhappier just after learning the results of the election, and/or whether
supporters of DPJ (which won a landslide victory) became happier. We also investigate theprogress of hedonic adaptation, i.e. how fast happiness returned to its previous level. In doing so,
we need to be careful of two potential confounds. One is that when the polls closed at 20:00,

8

television stations began to announce their prediction of the seats based on their own exit
polling, so that respondents who answered after 20:00 may have known part of the election
results. Thus, responses on 30th include some who knew the election results. However, thisnumber was probably minor, and confirmation of the results happened only on the 31st.5 Given
these facts, we conclude that it is appropriate to compare the happiness on the 31st with that on
the 29th in order to measure the effect of the election.
The second potential issue is that happiness level varies every day due to events otherthan the election. Thus, it is not appropriate to directly compare the average happiness levels of
supporters of a party on different days. Rather, we need to normalize the happiness of supportersof a party on a day by subtracting the average happiness of all the respondents on that day.6
Figure 1 shows the normalized happiness of supporters of the DPJ, LDP, and New Komeito
during the observation period. The happiness of DPJ supporters rose on the 31st and returned toits original level on September 1st. The happiness of LDP supporters dipped on the 31st, but
substantially recovered on September 1st. The happiness of New Komeito supporters fell
substantially on the 30th and dipped further on the 31st; although it recovered on September 1st, it

5

We retrieved the time of responses only on the last day (September 2), and 20% of the respondents
answered after 20:00 on that day (and 13% after 21:00).
6 We also constructed a normalized indicator of happiness by dividing by the average of all the
respondents on that day rather than subtracting. The results are quite similar to those reported in thispaper.
9did not return to its original level by the end of the sample period.7 These findings are
consistent with the hypothesis that supporters of the winning party become happier and those of
the losing party become less happy as a result of the election.
Figure 1 also shows that hedonic adaptation happened quickly. The happiness of DPJ andLDP supporters returned to their original levels very quickly. Even the happiness of New
Komeito supporters, which fell more than that of LDP supporters, recovered substantially on
September 1st, though not totally.
Regression analysis allows us to verify the significance of these results. We take the 29th as
the benchmark, since some respondents might have known the results after 8:00 P.M. on the 30th.
Explanatory variables are day-dummies from August 27th to September 2nd (August 29th is
excluded as the benchmark) and interaction terms of these day-dummies with party support
dummies. Thus, the regression equation for DPJ supporters is:
𝐻𝐴𝑃𝑃𝐼𝑁𝐸𝑆𝑆𝑖,𝑡 = 𝑐0 + 𝑐𝑖 + 𝑎27 𝐷𝐴𝑌27𝑡 + 𝑎28 𝐷𝐴𝑌28𝑡 +𝑎30 𝐷𝐴𝑌30𝑡 +𝑎31 𝐷𝐴𝑌31𝑡+ 𝑎01 𝐷𝐴𝑌01𝑡 +𝑎02 𝐷𝐴𝑌02𝑡 + 𝑏27 𝐷𝑃𝐽𝑖 ･𝐷𝐴𝑌27𝑡+ 𝑏28 𝐷𝑃𝐽𝑖 ･𝐷𝐴𝑌28𝑡 +𝑏30 𝐷𝑃𝐽𝑖 ･𝐷𝐴𝑌30𝑡 +𝑏31 𝐷𝑃𝐽𝑖 ･𝐷𝐴𝑌31𝑡+ 𝑏01 𝐷𝑃𝐽𝑖 ･𝐷𝐴𝑌01𝑡 +𝑏02 𝐷𝑃𝐽𝑖 ･𝐷𝐴𝑌02𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖,𝑡 ,(1)

where DAY27 is a day-dummy for August 27th, and so on. DPJ is a dummy variable indicating

7

This result may reflect the fact that New Komeito is smaller than the LDP and the DPJ, and has
many dedicated supporters. See also footnote 17.
10

support for the DPJ. For the regression measuring the happiness of LDP supporters, the DPJ
dummy is replaced with an LDP dummy in eq. (1). In order to control for personal
characteristics that are constant over the observation period, we estimate the equation with afixed effects model. DPJi does not appear alone in equation (1) because it is anindividual-specific term. We call this specification Model 1.
We also estimate a Model 2, in which variables that change every day are added as controls.
These include:
SLEEP:

Did you sleep well last night?

1. poor sleep, 2. slightly poor sleep, 3. slept well, 4. slept very well
SLEEP is defined as the answer, which represents the quality of sleep.
HEALTH: How is your health now?
1. good, 2. generally good, 3. generally not good, 4. bad
HEALTH is defined as five minus the answer to this question, so that a larger number indicates
better health.
WORK: Have you already worked (or attended a class) today or are you going to attend
a class today?
1. I have worked, 2. I will be working, 3. I am working now, 4. No work today
Dummy variables WORK_DONE, WORK_AFTER, and WORK_NOW take unity if the answer is11

1, 2, and 3, respectively and zero otherwise.
NEWS:

Recall the most important personal news or event that occurred since you

answered this questionnaire yesterday. How did you evaluate the news?
Choose a number between -5 and 5. 5 is “very good,” -5 is “very bad.”NEWS is defined as the answer to this question.8
Table 2 presents descriptive statistics for these variables. For SLEEP and HEALTH, theaverage of each variable exceeds 2.5. The average of “personal news” is positive, implying that
good personal news is more frequent than bad.
In Table 3, the estimates for the regression with the DPJ dummy are presented. In Model 1
the coefficient on the interaction term between DPJ and DAY31 is positive and significant at the
1% level, implying that DPJ supporters became significantly happier than they were before theelection. In Model 2, the coefficient becomes smaller, but is still significant at the 10% level.
Among the control variables, the coefficients on HEALTH and NEWS are positive andsignificant, taking large values.
In Table 4 the results for LDP supporters are shown. In Model 1, the interaction term
between LDP and DAY31 is significantly negative at the 5% level, and in Model 2 significant at
the 10% level. The interaction term between LDP and DAY27 is also significantly negative.

8

We asked a similar question about macro news, i.e. news conveyed by media like TV andnewspapers. Thus, the news about the election is not included in this personal news.
12In Table 5, in addition to DPJ and LDP, we present the coefficient on the interaction terms
between DAY30 and DAY31 and New Komeito, old (before the election) ruling party supporters,new (after the election) ruling party supporters, pro-Aso-cabinet, and anti-Aso-cabinet.
Supporters of New Komeito became unhappier not only on 31st but also on 30th already. Yet, thecoefficient of the interaction term between New Komeito and DAY31 is larger. Supporters of theold ruling party show the same tendency. Supporters of the new ruling party became happier
only on the 31st in Model 1. Pro-Aso-cabinet respondents were unhappier both on the 30th and31st. On the other hand, anti-Aso-cabinet respondents were happier on both days. All of theseresults are generally consistent with our hypothesis.

4. Robustness check
We check the robustness of the results presented in the previous section using the data onchanges in happiness and on expectations.
4.1

Changes in happinessIn the survey, we asked every day not only about happiness levels, but also about changes inhappiness:
Your happiness today compared with your happiness yesterday (before) is
1. very happy, 2. fairly happy, 3. slightly happy, 4. same as yesterday (before), 5. slightly

13

unhappy, 6. fairly unhappy, 7. very unhappy
We define CHANGE as eight minus this answer. The average change in happiness exceeds 4(average of 1 to 7), implying that level of happiness defined as the sum of these changes inhappiness is increasing (see Table 2).9
Although one might think that changes in happiness should be the same as the firstdifference of the reported level of happiness, the changes people reported were very different
from the first difference of the levels they reported. While the average of the latter is aroundzero, the average of the former exceeds 4 (average of 1 to 7), so that if we were to calculate thehappiness level as the sum of the reported happiness changes, we would find that happinessgrows more or less continuously.10
Because the variable CHANGE also varies every day due to various reasons, we normalize
it by subtracting each day’s average. In Figure 2, we present CHANGE for DPJ, LDP, and New
Komeito supporters. While LDP and New Komeito supporters reported negative happinesschanges on the 31st, DPJ supporters reported positive changes. In addition, on September 1st,
happiness rose for LDP and New Komeito supporters and declined for DPJ supporters, which
may have been reactions to the large drop on the previous day.

9

Tsutsui and Ohtake (2012) report that the same tendency is evident in their daily happiness survey
over 300 days!
10
Tsutsui and Ohtake (2012) confirm this using 300 daily data and show that the reason why these
two series differ is that adaptation is perfect in the latter case, while only 1/3 of the happiness is
adapted in the former.
14

When we regress happiness changes on the day dummies and the interaction terms
between day dummies and the DPJ dummy, the coefficient of the interaction term is significant
only on the 31st at the 1% level (results not shown). This result does not change when we add
the control variables (Model 2). As for the LDP supporters, happiness declined on the 31st
(significant at the 5% level) and on the 27th (significant at the 10% level).11

4.2 Only unexpected results affected happinessOne suspects that a fully anticipated election result would not truly be news, and hence would
not have an effect on happiness. Only an unexpected result should have an impact. In thissubsection, we examine that hypothesis.
On the day following the election (the 31st), we asked respondents: “Were the election
results what you expected?”, and requested them to choose from “as expected,” “a little bit
different from expectation,” “substantially different from expectation,” and “completely
different from expectation.” We then divided the sample into those who answered “as expected”
and those who answered otherwise. In Figure 3, we present the normalized happiness for thetwo groups of DPJ supporters. The “as expected” group numbered 185 and all others numbered
67, indicating that many people expected the correct result. Comparing happiness levels on the

11

They lose the significance when we add the control variables; it did not significantly decline on
any day at the 10% level.
1529th and 31st, while happiness is almost flat for those who answered “as expected,” it greatly
increased on the 31st for those who chose the other options.
In Figure 4, the results of the same analysis for LDP supporters are presented. Here, thenumber of people who chose “as expected” is 71 and the other options 68. Comparing happinesson the 29th and 31st, while happiness of the “as expected” group did not change, the happiness ofthe others dropped substantially on 31st.
Thus, these results reveal that both DPJ and LDP supporters experienced increased
happiness only when they faced unexpected results. This offers one more example of the general
proposition in Economics that only unexpected things matter.

5. Why did happiness change due to the results of the election?
Why did people feel happiness and unhappiness from the result of the election? Traditional
economists, who assume that individuals are selfish, might argue that people become happy
only when they gain material benefit. In this section, we examine this hypothesis.
In our survey on August 28th, we showed respondents seven policies that were the main
issues at the election and asked respondents which party’s policy is preferable to them.12
Among the policies, “child allowance policy” and “expressway toll policy” can be used to
12

The seven policies are child allowance, expressway toll, transfer of administrative powers to
local government, reconstruction of public finance, reform of bureaucratism, pension reform,
and farm subsidies.
16

clarify whether people vote for a party in order to receive material benefit. For the former policy,
33% of the respondents preferred the DPJ’s policy position, and 17% preferred the LDP’s; forthe latter issue, these figures were 26% and 23％. Over 40% answered “I cannot say which ispreferable” for both questions.13 The DPJ in general proposed more generous policies than the
LDP; for the child allowance, the DPJ promised a larger allowance, and for the expressway toll,
the elimination of tolls.14 Therefore, if DPJ took power, those households with children under
15 and those who own cars would be better off. If the reason people support the DPJ is to getmaterial benefits from its control of government, households with children under 15 years old
and households with cars would see their happiness rise more than that of other households
from a DPJ victory. Fortunately, our survey includes data on whether households have children
under 15 years old, and how many cars they own. Thus, we can divide households into those
who stood to receive material benefits from the victory of DPJ and those who did not.
We divide DPJ supporters according to whether they have cars or not, and calculate thenormalized happiness on each day. Results for car ownership are shown in Figure 5. There is noevidence that car owners became happier on the 31st than non-car owners (comparisons between
two groups of the changes from 29th to 31st; t=-0.212).15
Similarly we divide the sample according to whether respondents have children under 15.
13

Furthermore, 10% answered “I don’t know the policies of either party.”
The LDP criticized the DPJ’s policies, pointing out that they would require increased deficits.
15
The negative sign means that non-car owners became happier.
14

17

Results for households with children are presented in Figure 6. Although it looks like childlesshouseholds became happier than other households, the difference between the groups of thechanges from 29th to 31st is not significant (t=-0.644). These results suggest that DPJ supporters
became happier for reasons other than the monetary benefits they stood to gain from therealization of the DPJ’s policies. These results indicate that people do not necessarily select theirsupporting party due to the material benefits they obtain.16
The results of no difference between the groups might have been obtained because theelection results were expected beforehand. To check this possibility, we repeated our analysis
restricting the sample to those who answered that the election results were unexpected.
Although households with cars became happier and those without cars became unhappier, thedifference between the two groups was not significant (t= 0.459). As for child allowances,although the happiness of households with children didn’t change, and the happiness of those
without children increased, the difference is not significant (t= -0.827). Therefore, our results
are robust even if we restrict the sample to those who did not expect the election results.

6. Conclusions
This paper examined whether Japanese voters became happy and/or unhappy due to the results
16

They probably choose a party whose world view and opinion about society are consistent with
their own. Preference for the individual candidates of a particular party may also be an importantfactor.
18

of an election that produced a historic government changeover. The former general election had
also been a very heated one. Tsutsui et al. (2010) analyzed that election and found that while thesupporters of the winning party became happy and those of the losers unhappy, these changes
were not significant. Although the authors interpreted the result to indicate that Japanese people
are apathetic about elections, they faced the problem that their monthly survey started four days
after the election. Thus, their results do not rule out the possibility that Japanese became very
happy and unhappy just after the election.
To examine this possibility, we need to investigate how quickly the happiness andunhappiness changes brought about by the election results dissipated, so that we conducted adaily survey covering the voting day. Using these survey data we found that DPJ supporters, thewinner, became significantly happier only on 31st, and the LDP and New Komeito supporters,
the loser, became significantly unhappier on 31st.17 Japanese people become happy and unhappy
just after the election according to their party preferences, but they returned to their previous
level of happiness quickly. Rapid adaptation is the reason Tsutsui et al. (2010) did not findsignificant results.
In addition, in our survey, we asked respondents whether their happiness went up or down

17

Supporters of New Komeito became unhappier on 30th (election day). It is widely known that
supporters of New Komeito, which is backed by a large religious body named Soka-Gakkai, tend tobe passionate. Therefore, we surmise that many of them watched the election results at the
beginning of on the vote-counting on the 30th.
19from the preceding day. Using these data, we confirmed that data on changes in happinessproduce similar results to the data on happiness levels.
To measure the impact of surprises, we asked respondents whether the election results were
expected. We found that the happiness level of those whose expectation was confirmed did notchange, while the happiness of those who were surprised by the results tended to change
substantially.
Finally, we investigated whether expected material benefit from policy changes accounted
for the happiness changes. However, our empirical analysis did not find evidences for thishypothesis, suggesting that party support is not determined primarily by material benefits. It
might be the case that sympathy with the policies and the candidates of a party are the mostimportant factors in determining party affiliation.
A problem with our study is that we could not separate the responses on 30th into those
before or after the election, since we did not obtain the exact time of response. Since the newsof the election results started at 20:00 on TV, the responses on the 30th include both some who
knew about the election results and some who didn’t. Thus, we make do with comparinghappiness on the 31st with that on the 29th.
Although our survey is not perfect, collecting daily data before and after voting day isinnovative, and contributes to the elucidation of whether happiness varies due to election results20

in Japan.

21

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Kimball, M., Levy, H., Ohtake, F., Tsutsui, Y., 2006. Unhappiness after Hurricane Katrina.
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23

Table 1. Number of supporters of each party (Results of our survey)
TOTAL

DPJ

LDP

New Komeito

Small Parties

NP

DK

DWA

Count

1068

252

139

32

103

443

67

32

Proportion (%)

100

23.6

13.0

3.0

9.6

41.5

6.3

3.0

Note: Small Parties include Japanese Communist Party, Social Democratic Party, Your Party,
New Party Nippon, People’s New Party, the Happiness Realization Party, Japan RenaissanceParty, and New Party Daichi. NP, DK, and DWA stand for “Non-Affiliated,” “I Don’t Know,”and “I Don’t Want to Answer,” respectively.

24

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the variables used in this paper
Number ofobservations

Mean

Standard
deviation

Minimum

Maximum

HAPPINESS

7476

6.144

2.218

0

10

CHANGE IN HAPPINESS

7476

4.264

1.053

1

7

SLEEP

7476

2.628

0.905

1

4

HEALTH

7476

2.877

0.722

1

4

WORK_DONE

7476

0.242

0.428

0

1

WORK_AFTER

7476

0.128

0.334

0

1

WORK_NOW

7476

0.125

0.331

0

1

NEWS

7476

0.870

2.511

-5

5

25

Table 3.

Estimation results of eq. (1) for DPJ supporters

Model 1Model 2

Coefficients P-Value Coefficients P-Value
CONSTANTDPJ×DAY27

6.290
0.109

0.000
0.343

5.100
0.097

0.000
0.359

DPJ×DAY28
DPJ×DAY30
DPJ×DAY31
DPJ×DAY01
DPJ×DAY02
DAY27
DAY28
DAY30
DAY31

-0.068-0.016
0.313
0.020
0.023
0.054
-0.119-0.087-0.408

0.556
0.888
0.006
0.860
0.840
0.333
0.033
0.119
0.000

-0.063-0.1050.178-0.004-0.0160.111-0.062-0.076-0.326

0.552
0.321
0.092
0.972
0.880
0.034
0.234
0.139
0.000

DAY01
DAY02
SLEEP
HEALTH
WORK_ DONE
WORK_AFTER
WORK_NOW
NEWS-0.294-0.257

0.000
0.000

-0.234-0.216
0.014
0.332
0.067
-0.088-0.111
0.199

0.000
0.000
0.486
0.000
0.141
0.115
0.062
0.000

Number of observations

7476

7476

R squared

0.021

0.174

26

Table 4.

Estimation results of eq. (1) for LDP supporters

Model 1Model 2

Coefficients P-Value Coefficients P-Value
CONSTANTLDP×DAY27

6.290-0.298

0.000
0.040

5.102
-0.240

0.000
0.072

LDP×DAY28
LDP×DAY30
LDP×DAY31
LDP×DAY01
LDP×DAY02
DAY27
DAY28
DAY30
DAY31

-0.077-0.169-0.368-0.114-0.1980.118-0.125-0.069-0.286

0.597
0.245
0.011
0.431
0.171
0.023
0.017
0.187
0.000

0.040
-0.084-0.241-0.070-0.1410.165-0.083-0.090-0.253

0.762
0.529
0.070
0.602
0.291
0.001
0.094
0.063
0.000

DAY01
DAY02
SLEEP
HEALTH
WORK_DONE
WORK_AFTER
WORK_NOW
NEWS-0.274-0.226

0.000
0.000

-0.226-0.202
0.014
0.332
0.068
-0.088-0.109
0.199

0.000
0.000
0.509
0.000
0.135
0.115
0.068
0.000

Number of observations

7476

7476

R squared

0.020

0.174

27

Table 5.

Change in happiness of various groups between 29th and 31st
and between 29th and 30thModel 1
Coefficient P-ValueLDPDPJ
NEW KOMEITOOLD RULING PARTY
NEW RULING
PARTY
PRO-CABINET
ANTI-CABINET

Model 2
Coefficient

P-Value

From 29 to 30-0.1690.245-0.084

0.529

From 29 to 31-0.3680.011-0.241

0.070

From 29 to 30-0.0160.888-0.1050.321

From 29 to 31

0.313

0.006

0.178

0.092

From 29 to 30-0.6470.023-0.6100.020

From 29 to 31-0.9760.001-0.9600.000

From 29 to 30-0.2820.034-0.203

0.097

From 29 to 31-0.5210.000-0.4110.001

From 29 to 30-0.043

0.699

From 29 to 31

0.247

0.024

0.143

0.157

From 29 to 30-0.3500.027-0.276

0.057

From 29 to 31-0.4700.003-0.3270.024

From 29 to 30

0.239

0.018

0.187

0.044

From 29 to 31

0.347

0.001

0.257

0.005

-0.112

0.267

Note: Coefficient and P-Value are those on the day dummies representing the 30th and 31st,
respectively.

28

0.8
DPJ (N=252)

LDP (N=139)

New Komeito (N=32)

0.6

0.4
0.2
0.0
-0.2
-0.4

-0.6
-0.8
-1.0
-1.2
-1.4
27-Aug28-Aug29-Aug30-Aug31-Aug

1-Sep

2-Sep

Figure 1. Normalized happiness of DPJ, LDP, and KOM supporters.
Note: Normalized happiness is computed as a respondent’s happiness divided by the averagehappiness of the whole sample. Capped spikes represent standard errors.

29

0.6
DPJ (N=252)

LDP (N=139)

New Komeito (N=32)

0.4

0.2

0.0

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8
27-Aug28-Aug29-Aug30-Aug31-Aug

1-Sep

2-Sep

Figure 2. Average normalized change in happiness of DPJ, LDP, and New Komeito supporters

30

0.6
As expected (N=185)

Not as expected (N=67)

0.4

0.2

0.0

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8
27-Aug28-Aug29-Aug30-Aug31-Aug

1-Sep

2-Sep

Figure 3. Normalized happiness for DPJ supporters and whether the result was as expected or
not

31

1.0
As expected (N=71)

Not as expected (N=68)

0.8
0.6
0.4

0.2
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
27-Aug28-Aug29-Aug30-Aug31-Aug

1-Sep

2-Sep

Figure 4. Normalized happiness for LDP supporters and whether the result was as expected or
not

32

1.0
Those who have at least one car (N=251)

Those who don't have a car (N=33)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0

-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
27-Aug28-Aug29-Aug30-Aug31-Aug

1-Sep

2-Sep

Figure 5. Normalized happiness of those who have at least one car and those who don’t have a
car

33

0.6

Those who have at least one child under 15 (N=163)
Those who don't have a child under 15 (N=193)

0.4

0.2

0.0

-0.2

-0.4
27-Aug28-Aug29-Aug30-Aug31-Aug

1-Sep

2-Sep

Figure 6. Normalized happiness of those who have at least one child under 15 and those who
don’t have a child under 1534