Discussion Paper No. 695

KOIZUMI CARRIED THE DAY:DID THE JAPANESE ELECTION RESULTS
MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY AND UNHAPPY?
Yoshiro Tsutsui
Miles KimballandFumio Ohtake

July 2007

The Institute of Social and Economic Research
Osaka University
6-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0047, Japan

Koizumi Carried the Day:
Did the Japanese Election Results
Make People Happy and Unhappy?∗
Yoshiro Tsutsui (Osaka University)
Miles Kimball (University of Michigan)
Fumio Ohtake (Osaka University)

Correspondence:
Yoshiro Tsutsui,Institute of Social and Economic Research,
Osaka University
6-1 Mihogaoka,
Ibaraki 567-0047, Japan.

Phone: +81-6-6879-8560
Fax: +81-6-6878-2766
E-mail: tsutsui@econ.osaka-u.ac.jp∗

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference of behavioral economics heldin Kyoto, Annual meetings of Japanese Economic Association and The Japan Society ofHousehold Economics. The authors are grateful to Daiji Kawaguchi, Fumihiko Hiruma, and theparticipants for their comments. The study is financially supported by the 21st century COE
program funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Abstract
This paper investigates whether Japanese people were happy and unhappy with thegeneral election conducted on September 11, 2005, in which the Prime Minister,
Koizumi, won a landslide victory. We conducted a large survey just after the election to
ask people how happy they were and which party they had supported. Although there
are consistent tendencies that supporters of ruling parties were happier and supporters of
opposition parties were unhappier, the effect was not significant. Considering the resultsof a previous study that showed that Americans demonstrated significant responses tothe result of a presidential election, this study suggests that Japanese people are
indifferent to politics.

Keywords: election, happiness, Koizumi Cabinet, survey, JapanJEL classification number: I31, D72, C42

1. Introduction
To what extent are people interested in politics? Standard economic theory assumes thatpeople’s utility depends on their own consumption, and so the importance of politicalinstitutions is often disregarded, although the latter essentially determine overall
economic outcomes. Of course, people admit that the political system is an
infrastructure necessary to achieve high economic performance and is very importantfrom the view point of improving the level of happiness of people (Frey and Stutzer,
2002).
Nevertheless, many people do not participate in political activities because thepolitical system is seen as a public good that can be free-ridden. On the other hand, thepolitical process can be regarded as a battle between two competing opinions rather thanthe provision of public goods. However, even in this case, people tend to think that they
are too small and helpless to influence the outcome, and so they do not participate inpolitical activities. This is also a kind of a free-rider problem within a political group. In
fact, the voting rate has been declining in many countries, including Japan and the U.S.,
and indifference to politics is an important social problem in democratic countries.
This paper investigates whether Japanese people were happy and unhappy with theelection outcomes. Although democratic countries worry about their nations’indifference to politics, there are no good ways to measure the degree of interest in anelection amongst a nation’s population. Asking people about their happiness after anelection and comparing the levels of happiness of winners and losers may be a good
method to measure their interest in an election; people who are interested in victory or
defeat in an election should become happy or unhappy with the results. Nevertheless,there have been only a few studies, to our knowledge, that have investigated the degree1

of happiness amongst voters (Wilson et al., 2003 and Gilbert et al., 1998). Theseprevious studies asked only 52 and 57 voters respectively; therefore, these resultscannot be seen as a convincingly robust representation of any tendency in the UnitedStates. We conducted a large survey in which we obtained about 1400 responses every
month, randomly sampled from all over Japan. Thus, this is the first comprehensive
study to investigate how much people are interested in an election.
Our study is also unique from the viewpoint of studying the degree of happinesswith results. Most of the surveys on happiness ask people about their overall feeling of
happiness.1 The typical question is Overall, to what degree are you currently feeling
happy? This type of question neglects an important characteristic of the feeling of
happiness, i.e., that it fluctuates in line with news and personal events (Kimball andWillis, 2006). In contrast, this study focuses on how people’s happiness is influenced bymacro news such as election results. In order to investigate how happiness depends onnews and personal events, we conducted a survey on happiness every month withrespondents in Japan and asked them about their current feeling.2
In this paper, we analyze the effect of the general election conducted on
September 11, 2005. This election was a rather heated one and the Koizumi Cabinet
won an overwhelming victory that exceeded predictions by the media. Surprisingly, ourstudy does not find any significant change in happiness amongst winners or losers,
suggesting that Japanese people are indifferent to politics.
This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we first explain how theelection was conducted and provide an outline of our survey. Then, we show that there
1

Kahneman et al. (2004) is a notable exception. They asked 900 working women on theirchange in happiness during the course of a day.
2
We conducted a similar survey in the U.S., from which we found that Hurricane Katrina madeAmericans significantly unhappy. See Kimball et al. (2006).
2

is a tendency for supporters of ruling parties to become happier and for those of
opposition parties to become unhappier, but that this tendency is insignificant. In
section 3, by looking at the level of happiness over the six days following the election,
we examine how the elation and dismay at the result of the election faded away. In
section 4, we analyze the happiness of cabinet supporters. In section 5, we examine
whether the happiness of voters was affected by the win or loss of their candidates.
Section 6 is devoted to discussion of our findings and conclusions that can be drawn
from them.

2.

Did Japanese become happy and unhappy according to their politicalallegiance?
2.1.

The general election on September 11, 2005

The general election was conducted on Sunday, September 11, 2005, and the Prime
Minister, Koizumi, won a landslide victory. The Liberal Democratic Party (hereafter
LDP) carried 296 seats of the 480 seats in the House of Representatives. Combining
these with the seats carried by New Komeito (Komei), with which the LDP has
concluded an alliance, the ruling parties carried over 2/3 (327/480) of the seats in theHouse of Representatives. The Japanese Diet consists of the House of Representatives
and the House of Councilors, and to be approved, bills should clear both. However,even if they are rejected in the House of Councilors after approval by the House ofRepresentatives, they are approved if they win over 2/3 of the votes in the House ofRepresentatives on a second vote. Therefore, the victory of over 2/3 of the seats in theHouse of Representatives implies that Prime Minister Koizumi can pass any bill that hewants.

3

To understand why this election result is important, we need to explain thesituation under which Koizumi dissolved the House of Representatives on August 8.
The alliance of the LDP and Komei commanded a majority in both Houses; therefore, in
principle, they could have passed any bill. However, the privatization of the Japan
Postal Service Public Corporation, which was the most important public promise madeby Koizumi, met strong opposition from many Diet members of the LDP. In
consequence, the bill passed the House of Representatives by a close margin, but was
rejected in the House of Councilors on August 8. Prime Minister Koizumi dissolved theHouse of Representatives at once, saying that he wanted to ask the nation’s opinion on
the privatization. Thus, the general election became a kind of national referendum on
the policy of the reform of postal services. How this election attracted the nation’s
attention was reflected in the high turnout rate of voters: 68 % this time around, asagainst 60% at the last general election. The main events reported in newspapers during
the period from August to October can be found in the Appendix.

2.2 Our survey
We conducted monthly surveys from August 2005 to February 2006, and focused on theimpact of the general election conducted on September 11, 2005.
Let us explain the outline of our survey, taking the September survey as an
example. The surveys in the other months have similar features. In each case, 2000
people over 20 years old were randomly selected from all over Japan and interviewed.3
In the September survey, the number of effective responses was 1399; the response rate
was 70.0%. The survey was conducted from September 13 to 20, and the number of
3

The survey is not a panel. Different people are randomly chosen every time.
4

respondents on each date is shown in Table 1.4
653 respondents (46.7%) were male and 746 (53.3%) were female. In terms of age,
10.4% were 20–29 years old, 18% were 30–39 years old, 17% were 40–49 years old,
22% were 50–59 years old, and 33% were over 60 years old. As for academic
background, 15% had been to a grade school, 52% had a high school education, and
32% had been to an university. We also have the data on their household income,occupation, residence location, and the size of cities, as well as their attitude towards the
Koizumi Cabinet, which party they support, and their view on the state of business.5
749 respondents (53.5%) supported the Koizumi Cabinet, 416 (29.7%) were
opposed to it, and 234 (16.7%) answered “do not know.” The parties supported byrespondents are shown in Table 2. 32% supported the LDP and 15% supported the
Democratic Party of Japan (DP), while 42% did not support any party. Thus, how to
attract those who did not support a specific party was the key, and according to exit
polls, about a half of them voted for the LDP, leading to the victory of Koizumi.
As for happiness, the following question was asked:
Please remember how you felt in this one week. To what degree were you feeling happyin the last week? On a scale of 0−10, where “10” is “very happy” and “0” is “veryunhappy,” how do you rate your level of happiness in the last week?
We define a variable, Happiness, for this value. The results of the survey conductedin September are shown in Table 3. Out of 1399, those who chose 5 formed the largest
group (397 = 28.4%), and those who chose 6, 7, or 8 numbered over 200 each (about15%). The average happiness value was 6.3.64

Although one answer and four answers were obtained on September 13 and 20, respectively,
we disregard them when analyzing the effect on each day because they are very few in number.
5
Household income has not been asked in the surveys for several months.
6
A similar question about overall happiness has been asked in the “survey of preference on life5

2.3 Level of happiness of Supporters of ruling parties
We want to investigate whether the level of happiness of supporters of the ruling parties
rose from August to September, and whether the degree of happiness of supporters of
opposition parties fell during the same period. In this subsection, we calculate theaverages of happiness for these groups for each month in order to compare them. Since
happiness changes from month to month due to various reasons, we must be careful toadjust the figures to allow for this variation caused by events other than the election.
As can be seen from Figure 1, the average happiness of all respondents
substantially varied over the period. In particular, we are interested in the change inhappiness from August to September and the figures show that the average level ofhappiness of all respondents in August is higher than that in September. Thus, if we finda decrease in happiness amongst supporters of the ruling parties in September, it does
not necessarily imply that the election results affected the supporters in a negative way.
In order to identify the effect of the election results on the level of happiness amongst
supporters of the ruling and opposition parties, it is necessary to adjust the change inaverage happiness between months. To do so, we divide the happiness of supporters of
ruling and opposition parties by the average happiness of all respondents for eachmonth.
Indeed, happiness amongst supporters of the ruling parties in September was
lower than that in August. However, when we adjust the change in average happiness of
all respondents, the outcome is reversed. The dark color columns in Figure 2, which
represent the level of normalized happiness, reveal that supporters of the ruling parties
in Japan.” The results (the average and distribution) are quite similar.

6rose in September, declined until December, and rose again in January and February.
The rise in September may be due to the victory in the election.
The grey color columns in Figure 2 represent the normalized happiness of
supporters of opposition parties. The normalized happiness fell in September, fell evenmore in October before going up until January.7 The result that the level of happinessfell in September is consistent with the notion that it was caused by the defeat in theelection. However, one may argue that the result that it fell more in October than in
September makes this an unreasonable explanation.
Our survey also asks whether or not people support the Koizumi Cabinet.
According to the results, a large proportion of supporters of opposition parties also
supported the Koizumi Cabinet in September. This is not strange because the Prime
Minister, Koizumi, claims that he is the real reformer of the LDP, and so people who areagainst the LDP may, nonetheless, support Koizumi. They may have felt happy to hearthat Koizumi won.
Considering this fact, it may be appropriate to focus on the happiness of those
who supported the opposition and did not support the Koizumi Cabinet. The light color
columns in Figure 2 represent the results, which reveal that the happiness of thosepeople fell in September and rose in October, and then continued to go up until
December. This result is consistent with the supposition that people who were against
both Koizumi and the LDP became unhappy with the defeat in the general election in
September, 2005.
The ruling party consists of the LDP and Komei, while the opposition consists of
the Democratic Party of Japan (DP), the Japanese Communist Party (Communist), the7

Original happiness of supporters of opposition parties before normalization fell in September.
7

Social Democratic Party (SDP), the People’s New Party (PNP), and New Party Nippon(NPN). Let us examine whether the results on ruling and opposition parties mentioned
above apply for each party. The supporters of Communist, SDP, PNP, and NPN are too
few to get reliable statistics for each party; therefore, we aggregated the supporters ofthese small parties into one group (SMALL) and considered the LDP, Komei, DP, andSMALL.
The dark color columns in Figure 3 show the results for the LDP. The level ofhappiness rose in September. However, the difference from August to September was
only 0.004 and the happiness rose more in October. Thus, the rise in happiness of LDP
supporters was small in September.
The light color columns in Figure 3 show the results for Komei. The level ofhappiness rose in September and fell in October. The difference from August to
September is 0.04, which is ten times larger than that of supporters of the LDP. Thus,
the rise in happiness of Komei (the smaller ruling party) supporters is more pronounced
than that of LDP (the larger ruling party) supporters.
The dark color columns in Figure 4 show the results for the DP. The level ofhappiness fell in September and rose in October. However, the difference from August
to September was only 0.001.
The grey color columns in Figure 4 show the results for SMALL, i.e., Communist,
SDP, NPN, and PNP taken together. The level of happiness fell in September. The
difference from August was 0.04, which is forty times larger than that for the DP. Thus,
the fall in happiness of SMALL’s supporters was more pronounced than that of DP’s
supporters. Considering the results for the LDP and Komei together, these results
suggest that the supporters of smaller parties were more strongly affected by the results8

of the election.
However, the result that the level of happiness dropped much more in October thanin September is strange. This may be due to the fact that a considerable proportion of
the supporters of opposition parties also supported the Koizumi Cabinet. For example,
among the 32 supporters of Communist in September, 19 did not support the Cabinet
and ten did support the Cabinet.8 The average happiness of the former group was 5.2,
while that of the latter was 8.0. Thus, in September, the anti-cabinet Communist
supporters were much unhappier than pro-cabinet Communist supporters.
To get rid of the bias from pro-cabinet supporters of opposition parties, we show
the happiness of supporters of SMALL who were anti-cabinet as the light color columns
in Figure 4. Their level of happiness fell in September by almost 0.10. While thehappiness was lower in October than in September, the change between September andOctober was only half that between August and September.
The results in Figures 2–4 suggest that the supporters of ruling parties felt relatively
happy in September than in August, while those of opposition parties felt less happy in
September than in August. Considering that the survey was conducted a few days after
the election, the landslide victory of Koizumi may be the cause of this rise and fall inhappiness. The effect was larger for the supporters of smaller parties; for ruling parties,
the effect on Komei was larger than that on the LDP, and for the opposition parties, theeffect on SMALL was larger than that on the DP.

2.4 Is the change significant?
In this subsection, we examine whether the rise and fall in the level of happiness in8

Three answered ‘do not know’.
9September is significant. To test the significance of the change in happiness of
supporters of the ruling parties, we estimate the following equation.9
Happiness i = α1 + α 2 SEPi × DRULEi + α 3OCTi × DRULEi + α 4 NOVi × DRULEi+ α 5 DECi × DRULEi + α 6 JAN i × DRULEi + α 7 FEBi × DRULEi(1)+ β1 DRULEi + β 2 SEPi + β 3OCTi + β 4 NOVi + β 5 DECi + β 6 JAN i + β 7 FEBi

where AUG, SEP, OCT, NOV, DEC, JAN, and FEB are dummy variables standing foreach month. DRULE is a dummy variable, which is 1 if the respondent is a supporter ofruling parties and 0 otherwise. Subscript i stands for the respondents from August to
February (i= 1,…,8592). The change in happiness of supporters of ruling parties from
August to September is measured by the coefficient of SEP×DRULE, α 2 .
The estimates of (1) are shown in Table 4, which reveal that average happiness in
September is significantly lower (at the 5% level) than that in August (see SEP).10
Supporters of the ruling parties are significantly happier (at the 5% level) than others(see DRULE). The supporters of the ruling parties were happier in September than inAugust, but this is not significant (p-value is 0.315, see DRULE*SEP). However, thecoefficient is larger and more significant than those of other months, suggesting that thiscoefficient may reflect the impact of the election.
We estimate equations similar to (1) for the supporters of opposition parties,
SMALL (Communist, SDP, NPN, and PNP), LDP, and Komei.11 In order to save space,
only the estimates of α 2 are presented in Table 5. The indicators are consistent with
our expectation in all cases: those belonging to ruling parties, LDP, and Komei, arepositive, while those belonging to opposition parties, SMALL, and SMALL cum
anti-cabinet, are negative. This suggests that the results may not be accidental. However,
9

Alternatively, we could test the mean difference of the normalized happiness in August and
September.
10
The average happiness is also significantly lower in February.
11
DRULE in equation (1) is replaced with corresponding dummy variables.
10the estimates are all insignificant, suggesting that the effect of political events on thehappiness of the Japanese was quite limited, if it existed at all. The coefficient is larger
for Komei and SMALL (cum non-cabinet supporter) compared with the LDP and the
opposition parties in total, suggesting that the supporters of smaller parties like Komei,
Communist, and SDP have stronger loyalty than supporters of larger parties like the
LDP and DP.12

3.

Daily change in happiness in September

Happiness of supporters of political parties varies over a period of months, as shown in
Figures 2–4. However, it is not likely that the effect of the election results on thehappiness of average Japanese people lasts over months. The effect, if it exists, should
fade away in a shorter period. Kimball et al. (2006) showed that Hurricane Katrina
made American people unhappier, but the effect faded away within a week. In thissection, we investigate, by looking at the daily data, how long the effect of the election
lasted.
The survey was conducted from September 13 to 20. The number of respondents
on each date, shown in Table 1, varies from 150 to 350, with the exception of
September 13 and 20.13
We calculate average happiness of supporters of ruling parties each day. Since
happiness possibly fluctuated in line with macro news every day, we divide the averageby the mean of happiness of all respondents for each day. No specific trend is observed(figure is not shown in order to save space).
12

These estimates are not significant, probably because the number of supporters is small.
Although one answer and four answers were obtained on September 13 and 20, respectively,
we disregard them when we analyze the effect for each day because they are very few innumber.

13

11

The results of the supporters of Komei are represented by the dark color columns
in Figure 5. The average happiness declined from September 14 to 16, while the trend
thereafter is unclear.
The light color columns in Figure 5 represent the results of opposition parties.14 The
level of happiness rose from September 14 to 17 and thereafter declined. These two
results in Figure 5 may suggest that the effect of the election results lasted until
September 16 or 17.
To examine if this change in happiness by day is significant, we estimate thefollowing equation:
Happinessi = a0 + a1 DAY 15i + a2 DAY 16i + a3 DAY 17 i + a4 DAY 18i + a5 DAY 19i+ b0 DRULEi + b1 DRULEi × DAY 15i + b2 DRULEi × DAY 16i(2)+ b3 DRULEi × DAY 17 i + b4 DRULEi × DAY 18i + b5 DRULEi × DAY 19i
where DAY15 stands for a dummy variable for September 15 and so on. i stands forrespondents of the September survey (i = 1,…, 1361). b1 represents the discrepancy inhappiness of supporters of ruling parties between September 15 and 14. The coefficientsb1–b5 are not significant (results are not shown). The coefficients for supporters of
Komei and opposition parties are not significant either. Therefore, the day-effect inFigure 5 is weak, if it exists.

4.

Happiness of cabinet supporters

Who carried the day; the LDP or Koizumi? This is the question asked by the media after
the election. The answer was Koizumi. It may be interesting to see if the cabinet
supporters were happier than supporters of each party in September.

14

We expected that the happiness of supporters of SMALL would show a clearer pattern.
Unfortunately, the analysis of “smaller opposition parties” is impossible because theobservations are too few in number.
12

The dark color columns in Figure 6 represent the average happiness of cabinet
supporters in each month divided by the average happiness of all respondents for eachmonth.15 Unexpectedly, the normalized happiness of cabinet supporters declined in
September. The grey color columns in Figure 6 represent the happiness of anti-cabinet
supporters. Their happiness also declined in September. These results mean that only
those who answered “do not know” were happier in September, as shown by the lightcolor columns in Figure 6.
Why did this happen? There are two key facts to consider. The first is that the
number of cabinet supporters increased from 549 in August to 733 in September (seeTable 6). The other is that cabinet supporters are always happier than anti-cabinet
supporters; 6.62 as against 6.20 in August. Given these facts, a possible explanation for
the fall of happiness of pro-cabinet supporters is as follows. The increase in the numberof pro-cabinet supporters means that many people who would not have been pro-cabinet
in September, if the exogenous factors such as occurrence of the general election had
been the same as in August, actually changed their opinion to pro-cabinet. Since
non-pro-cabinet are generally unhappier than pro-cabinet, this shift produces a
downward bias of happiness of cabinet supporters in September. In short, the number ofpeople who support the cabinet is endogenously determined and an increase in their
number implies the inclusion of unhappier people into this category.
Thus, to measure the effect of the victory in the election on the level of happinessamongst pro-cabinet supporters, we need to identify imaginary cabinet supporters in
September who were also pro-cabinet in August. Since the survey chooses different
random samples every month and our sample is not panel data, we need to estimate
15

Cabinet supporters are consistently happier than anti-cabinet supporters.
13

hypothesized pro-cabinet supporters.
To solve this problem, we first estimate a model that explains what type of people
tend to support the Koizumi Cabinet. Adopting all the information available in our
survey, we estimate the following equation:
DCABi = a 0 + a1GOODNEWS i + a 2 DMAN i + a3 AGEi + a 4 SCHOOLi + a5 LARGE15CITYi+ a 6 OTHERCITYi + a 7 AGRICULTUREi + a8 FIELDi + a 9 FREE _ MANAGEi+ a10 HOUSEWIFEi + a11 STUDENTi + a12 OTHERJOBi + a13 HOKKAIDOi+ a14TOHOKU i + a15 KANTOi + a16 KEIHIN i + a17 KOSHINETSU i+ a18 HOKURIKU i + a19TOKAI i + a 20 KINKI i + a 21 HANSHIN i+ a 22TYUGOKU i + a 23 SHIKOKU i + a 24 GOODBCi+ a 25 LDPi + a 25 DPi + a 26 KOMEI i + a 27 COMMUNISTi + a 28 SDPi
(3)
where DCAB is a dummy variable, which is 1 when a respondent supports the Koizumi
Cabinet and 0 otherwise. GOODNEWS is a variable that takes a value from 1 to 12
corresponding to the range between “they had very good personal news or event in thelast week” and “they had very bad personal news or event in the last week.” DMAN is adummy variable, which is 1 when a respondent is a man and 0 otherwise. AGE is theage of each respondent, SCHOOL is a variable which takes 1 if the respondent’s
academic education is grade school, 2 if high school, and 3 if university. LARGE15CITY
is a dummy variable that takes 1 if a respondent lives in one of the 15 largest cities inJapan and 0 otherwise. OTHERCITY is a dummy variable that takes 1 if the respondent
lives in the other cities. Variables from AGRICULTURE to OTHERJOB are dummy
variables that take 1 if a respondent engages in a certain occupation. Variables fromHOKKAIDO to SIKOKU stand for a dummy variable representing regions in Japan.
GOODBC is a variable that takes a value from 1 to 5 corresponding to “businesscondition definitely becomes better” to “business condition definitely becomes worse.”

14

Variables from SLDP to SSDP are dummy variables for supporters of each party.
Subscript i stands for all respondents of the whole period (i = 1,…, 8592).
Using all the data from August to February, we estimate (3) with a probit. The
estimation results are shown in Table 7. Those who have higher education, who thinkthat business condition becomes better, and who got good personal news in the last
week tend to be cabinet supporters. Some regions are significant: HOKKAIDO and
KOSINETSU have negative indicators, while KEIHIN and KINKI have positive
indicators. Naturally, the LDP and Komei supporters also tended to support the cabinet,
whilst DP, Communist, and SDP supporters tended to be anti-cabinet.
Then, using these estimates, we construct the fitted value for each respondent, andtransform it into a probability with CNORM (fitted value), where CNORM stands forthe cumulative normal distribution. The number of cabinet supporters was 521 and at its
lowest in August; therefore, we select the top 521 respondents based on the probability
from those who answered “pro-cabinet” in the survey for each month.16
The average happiness of these 521 hypothetical pro-cabinet supporters for eachmonth, normalized by the average happiness of all respondents for each month, ispresented in Figure 7. The normalized average happiness of cabinet supporters rose in
September, then declined until December, and went up thereafter. In contrast to Figure 6,
happiness in September is higher than that in August. This outcome confirms that thereason why the happiness of pro-cabinet supporters declined in September is the sharp
increase in pro-cabinet supporters in September who are unhappier than cabinet
supporters. Once the endogeneity of cabinet supporters is adjusted by picking up the16

Alternatively, we can select the top 521 respondents disregarding the information on theiranswer of the pro-cabinet question. We believe, however, that the information is important,since R-squared of (3) is only 0.29.
15

same number of cabinet supporters, we found that their happiness rose relatively in
September, suggesting that the victory in the general election was good news to
pro-cabinet supporters.
Is this rise in happiness significant? To investigate this, we use equation (1), in
which DRULE is substituted by ADDCAB standing for a dummy variable that is 1 for
521 hypothetical cabinet supporters and 0 otherwise. The results are shown in Table 8.
SEP is negative, even though insignificant at the 10% level, suggesting that happinessdeclined in September. ADDCAB is significantly positive, suggesting that the
hypothetical pro-cabinet supporters were happier than others. ADDCAB*SEP is positive,
which suggests that the hypothetical pro-cabinet supporters were happier in September
than in August; however, this value is not significant.
The insignificant results raise the doubt that the rise in September is perhaps only
accidental. However, considering that all the results on the rise and fall of happinessamongst supporters of the ruling parties, the opposition parties, and the cabinet areconsistent with our supposition, it may be the case that the election results reallyaffected the happiness of the Japanese, albeit only weakly.

5. Number of elected representatives and happiness of the inhabitants
The prefecture where each respondent lives was documented, so that it is possible toestimate the effect of the number of winners of the LDP by prefecture in the generalelection on the level of happiness of the LDP supporters.17 We construct a variable,
WLDP, defined as (number of winners of LDP in a prefecture where a respondent
17

We also estimate the effect of the number of winners of parties other than the LDP, leading to
insignificant results. There are small electoral districts and proportional electoral districts in thecurrent Japanese electoral system. In this paper, we consider only the winners of the former
districts because people are generally interested in small electoral districts.
16

lives)/(total number of winners (i.e., seats) of the prefecture). To examine whether LDP
supporters became happier with the victory of the LDP in their home prefecture, weestimate the following equation.
Happinessi = a0 + a1SLDPi + a2 SLDPi *WLDPi(5)

where SLDP is a dummy variable, which takes 1 if a respondent supports the LDP and 0
otherwise. Subscript i stands for respondents in September (i = 1,…,1361)
The estimation results are presented in the first column of Table 9. Both coefficients,
a1 and a2, have a positive indicator, but they are not significant. Thus, it can be said thatLDP supporters did not care about the results of the election in their home prefecture.
Incidentally, SLDP and the cross term are significant when Happiness is regressedon them separately, implying that LDP supporters are happier than others (see thesecond and third columns of Table 9). WLDP is also positive when Happiness isregressed on only this variable, suggesting that the LDP won in the prefectures where alarger proportion of the inhabitants support the LDP, and they tend to be happier (seethe extreme right column of Table 9).

6. Discussion and Conclusions
This paper examined whether the landslide victory of the Koizumi Cabinet in thegeneral election on September 11, 2005 made Japanese people happy and unhappy.
Relative changes in happiness of supporters and non-supporters of ruling parties
from August to September were not significant. However, we found that the indicators
representing the effects are consistent with our expectation in most cases, whichsuggests that the Japanese people were only slightly happy and unhappy with theelection results.

17This result seems to imply that Japanese are quite indifferent to politics. However,
we need to examine a couple of elements before drawing this conclusion. Our results
could possibly have been obtained, even if the Japanese were deeply commited topolitics. One possibility is that the election results were anticipated beforehand, and so
the historic victory of Koizumi was not really a surprise. However, according to thearticles based on polls before the election, this supposition is not correct. All predictions
made by newspapers underestimated the number of seats gained by ruling parties. For
example, the Asahi, based on their poll (118,616 responses), reported on September 4that the ruling parties would win 254 to 310 seats (their best estimate was 283). The
Mainichi also announced their prediction on September 4, based on their poll (90,043
respondents), that the ruling parties would win 275 to 327 (the average is 301) seats. In
fact, the ruling parties won 327. Thus, the prediction in the media that the ruling parties
would win the majority was proved correct, and so winning the majority itself was not asurprise. However, winning two thirds of the seats should have been a surprise.
In addition, one important point is that this overwhelming victory may not begood news even to the supporters of ruling parties. The majority of people thought that
Koizumi (or the ruling parties) won too many seats. Interestingly, according to polls
after the election, about one third of those who had voted for the LDP answered thatfewer seats for the ruling parties would have been better (the Nikkei and the Yomiuri,
September 14). This suggests that one third of those who voted for the LDP may not be
happy because the LDP won too many seats. They may have regretted that they had
voted for the LDP, suggesting that many people supported the LDP only relatively, andnot absolutely. This is an example of the fallacy of composition. Considering this fact, it
is not surprising that supporters of ruling parties did not become significantly happier,18

even if they were deeply interested in politics. However, the fact does not explain why
supporters of opposition parties did not become significantly unhappier, even though
they were not indifferent to politics. Thus, our survey results suggest that Japanesepeople are essentially indifferent to politics.
The next question is whether the Japanese are more indifferent to politics thanpeople in other countries. A good measure of people’s interest in politics may be thevoting rate. The voting rate in the general elections in Japan has been declining over theyears since the first general election in 1890, reaching about 60% in recent years. On theother hand, the voting rate in the presidential election in the U.S. was 51% in 2000.
Thus, the voting rate is not low in Japan, at least for general elections. We should note,however, that people should register beforehand to vote in the U.S., while registration is
not necessary in Japan.18 Thus, it is easier for Japanese to vote; therefore, a simple
comparison may not be appropriate.19
The voting rate has been declining over the years in many countries, and so thegovernments of these countries warn of the crisis of democracy and try to increase thevoting rate. Although they lament people’s indifference to elections in their homecountries, it is difficult to know which nation is more indifferent to elections because
voting rates depend heavily on the electoral system.
Another barometer for interest in politics may be the number of members ofpolitical parties. The number of registered Republicans in the United States isapproximately 60 million, while the number of the members of the LDP in Japan is 1.2

18

The US registration rate was 75% in 2000.
In France, where people need to register to vote, the voting rate for presidential elections has
been over 70% over the last 30 years. As for the parliamentary elections in France, the voting
rate has been around 60% since 1988, which implies a higher incentive for voting than applies
in the Japanese case, considering the trouble of registration.

19

19

million.20 The number is much smaller in Japan than in the U.S., which emphasizes thatpolitics is more popular in the U.S. than in Japan. However, a simple comparison may
lead to a fallacy, since the definition of a party member is different in the twocountries.21
The two measures, voting rate and the number of members, are vulnerable todifferences between the systems and do not offer reliable evidence for comparison ofpeople’s indifference to politics. Rather, a survey on happiness of supporters of politicalparties like the one in this paper is expected to elucidate the degree of interest inelections.
There have been two studies that examined the effect of election results onhappiness of supporters of candidates. One is Gilbert et al. (1998), which analyzed
happiness amongst 57 voters at a gubernatorial election in Texas in 1994. Losers were
happier than winners both before and after the election; however, on the basis ofevaluations one month after the election, there was no evidence that winners became
happier than losers. Losers’ happiness was 5.00 just before the election and 5.33 one
month after the election, while winners’ happiness was 4.10 and 4.40 before and after
the election. The other study is Wilson et al. (2003), which investigated a U.S.
presidential election in 2000. They asked 52 college students about their happiness one
day after Gore conceded. Bush supporters were significantly (at the 1% level) happierthan Gore supporters.22 However, since they chose only students who were especially20

According to information provided by the Republican National Committee and fromadministration office of the LDP, respectively.
21
Members of the LDP are required to pay 4000 yen as an annual fee, while nothing special isrequired for registration in the U.S.
22
Since there were no significant differences in happiness between the two groups before theelection, they subtracted people’s initial happiness from the happiness after the election toevaluate the change.
20interested in politics, their significant results are not easily compared withourinsignificant results.
Thus, whether an effect of the election results on happiness was establisheddepended on when respondents were asked: in the U.S. the effect remained on the next
day of the event, but didn’t remain after a month. We interviewed respondents threedays after the election, which is closer to Wilson et al. (2003), suggesting that Japaneseare more indifferent than Americans. Of course, we should be careful because of thefact that there is discrepancy of two days. Kimball et al. (2006) found that dismaycaused by Hurricane Katrina faded away in a week; therefore, the difference of twodays might have resulted in different outcomes.23 Unfortunately, we have no clue as tothe answer to this question.

23

Whether the election attracted people’s attention may be another point. Both the generalelection in Japan and the Bush vs. Gore struggle attracted much attention: it is not easy to saywhich one is more focused on by the nations.
21

References
Frey, B. S. and A. Stutzer (2002) Happiness and Economics, Princeton UP.
Gilbert, D. T., E. C. Pinel, T. D. Wilson, and S. J. Blumberg (1998) “Immune Neglect:
A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting,” Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 75 (3), 617-638.
Kahneman, D., A. B. Krueger, D. A. Schkade, N. Schwarz, and A. A. Stone (2004) “A
Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction
Method,” Science 306, 1776-1780.
Kimball, M. and R. Willis (2005) “Utility and Happiness,” mimeo.
Kimball, M., H. Levy, F. Ohtake, and Y. Tsutsui (2006) “Unhappiness after Hurricane
Katrina,” NBER Working Paper No. 12062.
Tsutsui, Y., F. Ohtake, and S. Ikeda (2005) “The Reason Why you Are Unhappy,” ISER
Discussion Paper No. 630. (In Japanese)
Wilson, T. D., J. Meyers, and D. T. Gilbert (2003) “How Happy Was I, Anyway?: A
Retrospective Impact Bias,” Social Cognition 21 (6), 421-446.

22

Table 1

Number of responses on each day in September survey
total

13-Sep14-Sep15-Sep16-Sep

count

1399

1

149

192

183

proportion

100%

0.1

10.7

13.7

13.1

17-Sep18-Sep19-Sep20-Sep

count

327

353

190

4

proportion

23.4

25.2

13.6

0.3

(%)

(%)

Table 2

Number of supporters for each party
total

LDP

DP

Komei

Communist

SDP

count

1399

446

207

61

32

23

proportion

100

31.9

14.8

4.4

2.3

1.6

(%)
PNP

NPN

count
proportion

Other parties

No party

do not know

3

1

3

589

34

0.2

0.1

0.2

42.1

2.4

(%)
Note: Communist stands for Japanese Communist Party, SDP = Social Democratic Party, PNP= The People’s New Party, NPN = New Party Nippon.

Table 3.

Happiness values in September survey
total

10

9

8

7

6

5

count

1399

82

69

242

211

203

397

proportion

100

5.9

4.9

17.3

15.1

14.5

28.4

4

3

2

1

0 do not know

count

57

61

17

13

9

38

proportion

4.1

4.4

1.2

0.9

0.6

2.7

(%)

(%)

23

Table 4.

Estimates of equation (1)Variable
Constant

Coefficient
2.421-0.100-0.0450.028-0.0730.079-0.098
0.130
0.088
0.038
-0.009-0.039-0.022
0.046
0.008
8592

SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
JAN
FEB
DRULE
DRULE *SEPDRULE *OCTDRULE *NOVDRULE *DEC
DRULE *JAN
DRULE *FEB
R2
number ofobservations

Table 5.

P-value[.000][.045][.370][.573][.148][.112][.043][.044][.315][.670][.919][.664][.802][.614]

Estimates of α 2 : change in happiness from August to September for each

party
Party
RULING PARTY
LDP
Komei
OPPOSITION PARTYDP
SMALL
SMALL cum non-cabinet supporter

Table 6.

Coefficient
0.088
0.058
0.153
-0.026-0.012-0.068-0.250p-value[.315][.526][.448][.814][.924][.769][.341]The number of cabinet supporters in August and September

Pro-cabinet
Anti-cabinet
OthersAugustSeptembernumber of respondents happiness
number of respondents happiness
549
6.62
733
6.46
493
6.2
410
5.95
315
6.2
218
6.14

24

Table 7.

Characteristics of cabinet supporters

Parameter
Constant

Estimate P-value-1.336[.000]GOODNEWS
0.017[.012]
DMAN-0.057[.119]
AGE
0.000[.929]SCHOOL
0.053[.044]LARGE15CITY
0.007[.908]OTHERCITY
0.027[.530]AGRICULTURE
0.045[.697]OFFICE
0.061[.266]
FIELD
0.012[.819]
FREE_MANAGE-0.121[.194]
HOUSEWIFE-0.032[.573]STUDENT
0.123[.348]OTHERJOB
0.152[.011]HOKKAIDO-0.226[.008]TOHOKU
0.077[.299]
KANTO
0.063[.265]KEIHIN
0.153[.043]KOSINETU-0.280[.001]
HOKURIKU
0.137[.199]
TOKAI-0.042[.509]
KINKI
0.110[.101]
HANSHIN
0.027[.713]TYUGOKU
0.047[.543]
SIKOKU-0.118[.221]GOODBC
0.236[.000]
SLDP
1.517[.000]
SDP-0.393[.000]
SKOMEI
1.138[.000]SCOMMUNIST-0.621[.000]
SSDP-0.670[.000]
R2
0.285
number of
8592
observations

25

Table 8.

Significance of the rise in happiness of hypothetical pro-cabinet supporters

Variable
C

SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
JAN
FEB
ADDCABADDCAB*SEPADDCAB*OCTADDCAB*NOVADDCAB*DEC
ADDCAB*JANADDCAB*FEB
R2
Number ofobservations

Coefficient P-value
6.226[.000]-0.120[.234]-0.092[.375]
0.105[.307]-0.027[.793]
0.199[.050]-0.152[.130]
0.415[.000]
0.049[.753]
0.084[.598]-0.104[.515]-0.278[.080]-0.113[.475]-0.008[.961]
0.011
8592

Table 9. Estimation results of equation (5)Variable
Constant

Coeff. P-value Coeff.
P-value Coeff.
P-value Coeff. P-value
6.148[.000]
6.158[.000]
6.148[.000]
5.982[.000]
SLDP
0.289[.414]
0.337[.003]
SLDP*WLDP 0.064[.887]
0.411[.004]
WLDP
0.378[.114]
2
R
0.005
0.005
0.006
0.007
Number of
1361
1361
1361
1361
observations

26

Figure 1. Average happiness of all respondents
happiness
6.55
6.5
6.45
6.4
6.35
6.3
6.25
6.2
6.15
6.1
6.05
AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

JAN

FEB

month

Figure 2. Normalized happiness of supporters of ruling parties, opposition parties, andthose who support opposition but not the Koizumi Cabinet
normalized happiness
1.06
1.04
1.02
1
0.98
0.96
0.94
0.92
0.9
AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

JAN

FEB

month

ruling party

opposition party

opposition cum non-cabinet

Note: Normalized happiness is (average happiness of a group)/(average happiness of the wholesample).

27

Figure 3. Normalized happiness of supporters of LDP and KOMEI
normailzed happiness
1.08

1.06

1.04

1.02

1

0.98

0.96

0.94

0.92

0.9
AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

JAN

FEB

month
LDP

KOMEI

Figure 4. Normalized happiness of supporters of DP, SMALL, and SMALL cum
anti-cabinet
1.1

1.05

1

0.95

0.9

0.85

0.8
AUG

SEP

OCT
DP

NOV
SMALL

DEC

SMALL cum Anti-cabinet

28

JAN

FEB

Figure 5. Normalized happiness of supporters of Komei and opposition parties foreach daynormalized happiness
1.2

1.15

1.1

1.05

1

0.95

0.9

0.85

0.8
14

15

16

17

18

19

date
Komei

opposition

Figure 6. Normalized happiness of pro-cabinet supporters, anti-cabinet supporters, andthose who answered “do not know”
1.1

1.05

1

0.95

0.9

0.85

0.8
AUG

SEP

OCT

pro-cabinet

NOV

DEC

anti-cabinet

do not know

29

JAN

FEB

Figure 7. Normalized happiness of hypothetical pro-cabinet supporters

1.045

normalizedhappiness

1.04

1.035

1.03

1.025

1.02

1.015

1.01

1.005
AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

month

30

DEC

JAN

FEB

Appendix

Main events reported in the newspapers from July to October
month
July

survey day
5815

7/26-8/7
27
August

○

○

○
○

news
Bills for postal privatization were approved by the Houseof Representatives by a majority of five votes
Simultaneous suicide bombings in London
374 employees and contractors hired by asbestos productmanufacturers have died from asbestos-related illnesses,
the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in areportSix-nation talks aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear
weapons were held
Space Shuttle launched

2 LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) announced its draft fornation's new constitution, Article 9 of the draft
constitution stipulates that the Self-Defense Forces areto be maintained
5 The chair of Komei fraction at the House of Councilors
opposed the postal privatization bills, massive opposition in
the faction may arise
6 If the postal privatization bills are rejected at the House ofCouncilors, the House of Representatives will be dissolved
immediately
Tokyo stock market, fall across the board on 5th
Suicide website murder suspect, Maeda, was arrested on
5th
7 Suicide website murder, a body found
8 The postal privatization bills were rejected at the House ofCouncilors; the House of Representatives was dissolved
On the Tokyo financial markets, temporarily all three(stocks, yen, and bonds) fell
Suicide website murder, the third body was found9 Upon dissolution of the House of Representatives,
business world shows concern about bad effects on theeconomyHeizo Takenaka, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry,declared exit from phase of leveling off for Japanese
Economy31

10 Space Shuttle returned back to the Earth
10-15 Suicide website murder related articles appear innewspapers
23-31 Hurricane Katrina formed, hit Southern US
September

○
○
○

○
○
○

October○

2 Hurricane in the US, one million people sought refuge
7 Typhoon No.14 killed 11 people
11 The election was held, LDP won an overwhelming victorywith 296 seats in the House of Representatives
13 Six-nation talks aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear
weapons resumed
13 Four accountants arrested on charges of falsifying
accounting reports of Kanebo Ltd
14 Asahi Shimbun national survey shows the cause of victoryfor LDP was 58% the Prime Minister, 18% the party
15
16 Six-nation talks aimed at scrapping North's Korea's
nuclear weapons froze as North Korea demands U.S. toprovide a light-water reactor
17
17-26 Hurricane Rita formed, hit Southern US on 24th
18 Seiji Maehara became leader of the DP (Democratic Partyof Japan)
19 Six-nation talks aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear
weapons adopted a joint statement and the talks ended
22 The third Koizumi Cabinet was inaugurated on 21st
24 In the joint statement on 23rd, G-7 urges an increase in oil
supply by oil producers
25 Expo 2005 Aichi Japan ended
26 Train-derailment accident on JR West Co. in Amagasaki,
first joint memorial service was held on 25th
27 A fund headed by financier Yoshiaki Murakami has become
the top shareholder in Hanshin Electric Railway Co.
29 Hannshin Tigers, became this year's Champion in theCentral League Baseball
30 Osaka district court rules Prime Minister Koizumi's visits
to Yasukuni Shrine unconstitutional
1 Japan Highway Public Corp privatized
Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group and UFJ Holdings
integrated into Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
2 Series of terrorist attacks in Bali
7
32

○
○
○
○

8 M7.6 earthquake in Pakistan
91011
14 The House of Councilors passed and enacted into law a
set of bills designed to privatize Japan Post
17 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine
21 Postal privatization bills promulgated
21 Special Diet session ended
23 The House of Councilors by-election was held in
Kanagawa Prefecture
23 Former foreign minister and ruling LDP candidate Yoriko
Kawaguchi scored a clear victory
24 Japan may resume beef imports from the U.S. and Canada
as early as December
26 Lotte Marines won the Japan Series baseballchampionship

Note: ○ indicates the survey was conducted on that day.

33