Regional unemployment also played a role in the Central West and North, while leadership approval mattered in the South and Southeast (Panels J, K, and L). This is in line with the greater economic dynamism and better labor market conditions in the South of Brazil (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 2021). However, increase in economic pessimism and dissatisfaction with living standards played a role in the decline of SWB in all regions.

Since the last GWP survey included in our data set was conducted in November of 2020, it is possible that reactions to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic are also driving the declines in SWB and differences in these declines across groups. Since in the next section we focus on the role of the economic crisis in the mid-2010s and the loss of approval of the governments prior to Bolsonaro’s election in 2018, we conducted a robustness check on the analysis of the decline in SWB with data up to 2018. We find very similar results, which are available upon request.

# **5. Declining SWB and Voting Behavior**

Did the plunge in experienced welfare following the economic and political crisis in the mid-2010s influence the voting behavior in Brazil during the 2018 general elections? Since the work of Kramer (1971), several economic studies have linked the state of the economy to election outcomes which either reward or punish the incumbent party. Lewis-Beck & Stegmaier (2007) put forward two main explanations for the relationship between the state of the economy and voting behavior. First, voters can punish (or reward) the incumbent for a deteriorated (improved) personal economic situation. In developing countries, changes in one’s perceived personal economic situation have been found to be particularly strongly correlated with support for the incumbent (Lewis-Beck & Stegmaier, 2007). Job losses related to automation and globalization are also often mentioned as important reasons for the election of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016 (e.g., Autor et al., 2017). Second, voters can punish or reward the incumbent based on the standing of the national economy, irrespective of their own personal economic situation.

However, economic conditions are not the only factors linked to voting preferences. Several psychological studies have focused on other factors explaining voting behavior such as cultural backlash against progressive policies, demand for law and order, and status threat. Knuckey and Hassan (2020) associate the vote for Trump with anti-immigration sentiment and racial prejudice. Norris and Inglehart (2016) attribute the rise of populism in the West not to economic insecurity but to a cultural backlash and a reaction of once-dominant parts of the population to progressive viewpoints about ethnic minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. In this regard, status threat is also perceived as an important explanation for the Trump vote (Mutz, 2018).

There is also a literature on the links between voting behavior and SWB. Most studies on voting behavior mention a strong sense of discontent in parts of the population as a driver of voting the incumbent out of office (Ward et al. 2020). The explanation for this is simple: voters punish the incumbent party if their experienced welfare worsens as they blame the incumbent party for this deterioration; voters may also reward the incumbent party if they experience improvements in their quality of life. Several empirical studies find a strong positive association between SWB and voting for the incumbent party (e.g., Bravo, 2016; Liberini et al., 2017; Ward et al., 2020).<sup>21</sup> Bravo (2016), who studied this issue in Latin America, finds a strong correlation between SWB and the likelihood that the incumbent will win the elections using data from the Latinobarómetro. In elections held in Latin America between 1992 and 2013, support for left-wing parties was higher when the more unsatisfied voters were under a right-wing incumbent regime (Bravo, 2016).

> 21 In addition, several studies examine the relationship between political participation and SWB. Weitz-Shapiro and Winters (2011) find a causal relationship between individual happiness and the likelihood to vote in elections in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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