Abstract
This chapter investigates whether Japanese people were happy and unhappy with the general 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 results of previous studies that showed that Americans demonstrated significant responses to the result of a presidential election, this study suggests that Japanese people are indifferent to politics.
The original article first appeared in European Journal of Political Economy 26: 12–24, 2010. A newly written addendum has been added to this book chapter.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Of course there is a great deal of literature studying happiness data, including studies on the effect of the degree of democracy on people’s happiness. For a survey on economics of happiness, see Frey and Stutzer (2002a, b), Bruni and Porta (2005), Di Tella and MacCulloch (2006) and Clark et al. (2008). Elections have also been studied in numerous literatures such as Vergne (2009), Hindriks and Lockwood (2009), and Taniguchi (2005). However, there have been quite limited number of studies that relate these two topics.
- 2.
We conducted a similar survey in the U.S., from which we found that Hurricane Katrina made Americans significantly unhappy. See Kimball et al. (2006).
- 3.
We discuss what evidence has been published for the effects of election results on happiness in the U.S. in Sect. 6.
- 4.
The survey is not a panel. Different people are randomly chosen every time.
- 5.
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.
- 6.
Household income has not been asked in the surveys for several months.
- 7.
Original happiness of supporters of opposition parties before normalization fell in September.
- 8.
Three answered ‘do not know’.
- 9.
The average happiness is also significantly lower in February.
- 10.
DRULE in Eq. (16.1) is replaced with corresponding dummy variables.
- 11.
These estimates are not significant, probably because the number of supporters is small.
- 12.
Those who support small opposition parties and anti-cabinet became unhappier at the 10 % level.
- 13.
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 in number.
- 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 the observations are too few in number.
- 15.
Cabinet supporters are consistently happier than anti-cabinet supporters.
- 16.
Alternatively, we could have selected the top 521 respondents disregarding the information on their answer of the pro-cabinet question. We believe, however, that the information is important, since the R-squared of Eq. (16.3) is only 0.29.
- 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 the current Japanese electoral system. In this chapter, we consider only the winners of the former districts because we suspect that people are most interested in the results for the small electoral districts they are in.
- 18.
The US registration rate was 75 % in 2000.
- 19.
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.
- 20.
According to information provided by the Republican National Committee and from administration office of the LDP, respectively.
- 21.
Members of the LDP are required to pay 4,000 yen as an annual fee, while nothing special is required for registration in the U.S.
- 22.
They subtracted people’s initial happiness from the happiness after the election to evaluate the change.
- 23.
Whether the election attracted people’s attention may be another point. Both the general election in Japan and the Bush vs. Gore struggle attracted much attention: it is not easy to say which one is more focused on by the nations.
- 24.
However, happiness significantly rose on some other days.
References
Bruni L, Porta PL (2005) Economics and happiness: framing the analysis. Oxford University Press, New York
Clark AE, Frijters P, Shields MA (2008) Relative income, happiness, and utility: an explanation for the Easterlin paradox and other puzzles. J Econ Lit 46:95–144
Di Tella R, MacCulloch R (2006) Some uses of happiness data in economics. J Econ Perspect 20:25–46
Frey BS, Stutzer A (2002a) Happiness and economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Frey BS, Stutzer A (2002b) What can economists learn from happiness research? J Econ Lit 40:402–435
Gilbert DT, Pinel EC, Wilson TD, Blumberg SJ (1998) Immune neglect: a source of durability bias in affective forecasting. J Pers Soc Psychol 75:617–638
Hindriks J, Lockwood B (2009) Decentralization and electoral accountability: incentives, separation and voter welfare. Eur J Polit Econ 25:385–397
Kimball M, Willis R (2006) Utility and happiness. Mimeo
Kimball M, Levy H, Ohtake F, Tsutsui Y (2006) Unhappiness after Hurricane Katrina, NBER working paper no. 12062. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA
Taniguchi N (2005) Electoral behavior in contemporary Japan. Keio Gijuku University Press, Tokyo (in Japanese)
Tsutsui Y, Kimball M, Ohtake F (2010) Koizumi carried the day: did the Japanese election results make people happy and unhappy? Eur J Polit Econ 26:12–24
Vergne C (2009) Democracy, elections and allocation of public expenditures in developing countries. Eur J Polit Econ 25:63–77
Wilson TD, Meyers J, Gilbert DT (2003) How happy was I, anyway?: a retrospective impact bias. Soc Cogn 21:421–446
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the conference of behavioral economics held in Kyoto, Annual meetings of Japanese Economic Association and The Japan Society of Household Economics. The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees of this journal, Daiji Kawaguchi, Fumihiko Hiruma, and the participants for their comments. The study is financially supported by the 21st Century COE (Center of Excellence) Program funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Addendum: Investigation of the Effect of Election Results on Happiness Using Daily Data
This addendum has been newly written for this book chapter.
Addendum: Investigation of the Effect of Election Results on Happiness Using Daily Data
In the text, we found that the effect of election results on happiness is weak, and concluded that Japanese people are largely indifferent to politics. However, as we remarked in the text, since our survey started 3 days after the election, the results might merely indicate that people returned to their baseline feelings quickly, and in fact may have been very excited about the news on election day itself. To overcome this problem, we need to collect data on happiness over several days before and after the election day, including the day itself.
We thus conducted a daily survey that covers the period before, after, and including an election day. The sample included about 70 students of Osaka University, and examined the change in happiness for 7 days before and after the election for the House of Councillors held on July 29, 2007. This election was epochal, since the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a landslide victory, resulting that opposition parties became the majority in the House of Councillors. Nonetheless, we did not find a clear change in the happiness of respondents due to this event. Does this mean that Japanese people are indifferent to politics? The result might merely reflect the following possibilities: (1) the small sample might result in insignificant estimates; (2) the younger generation is more indifferent to politics and elections than older generations; (3) the House of Councillors receives much less popular attention than the House of Representatives.
To exclude these possibilities, we conducted a survey covering an election for member of the House of Representatives, conducted on August 30, 2009, and obtained 1,068 responses from people of various generations. The election was a historical event in that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komei Party, then in power, lost the election in a landslide, and the DPJ took power.
Here we report preliminary results based on this survey. Figure 16.8 shows the average happiness level of supporters of each party. The figure reveals that the happiness of the supporters of the LDP and Komei (which lost power in this election) substantially declined on August 31, the first day respondents reported their happiness after knowing the election results. However, their happiness substantially recovered on the next day. This result suggests that the analysis of the Koizumi election in the text, which was based on the data 3 days after the election, failed to catch a large change in happiness on the election day.
Happiness of supporter of each party
However, the decline of happiness of LDP and Komei supporters on the election day turned out to be statistically insignificant. Why? There are two possibilities. The one is that “supporters” includes “weak supporters” who are largely indifferent to election results. The other is that the media reported their expectations for the election results far ahead of time, allowing many people to anticipate a landslide victory for the DPJ, so that their happiness stayed unchanged when the anticipated result actually happened. In order to examine the first possibility, when we asked respondents about their party affiliation, we also asked them whether that support was strong. Respondents were requested to choose from “strong,” “somewhat strong,” “somewhat weak,” and “weak.” In addition, we asked on the next day of the election (August 31) whether the respondents went to vote or not, and for which party they voted.
To investigate the second possibility, we asked the respondents about their expectations about election results 2 days before the election (August 28). We also asked them on the next day of the election “Are the election results about the same as you expected?” Furthermore, on the same day, we asked how many seats they wished the DPJ to gain, requesting them to choose one from “I hope they gain more seats,” “I’m satisfied with this gain,” and “I hope they gain fewer seats.”
Using this data, we find:
-
1.
The happiness of “strong” and “somewhat strong” supporters of LDP significantly declined on August 31 (the day following the election).
-
2.
The happiness of LDP voters significantly declined on August 31.
-
3.
The happiness of those who expected a smaller DPJ gain than actually occurred significantly declined on August 31.
-
4.
The happiness of those who wished for a smaller DPJ gain than actually occurred significantly declined on August 31.
These results suggest that both the strength of party affiliation and expectations are crucial elements in deciding whether election results significantly affect happiness in Japan.
Figure 16.8 reveals that the happiness of DPJ supporters was barely moved by the election. Although we have not fully found the reason for this lack of movement, we confirmed the following:
-
5.
The happiness of “strong” DPJ supporters did not change much during the sample period.
-
6.
Even when we select for party affiliation, expectations, and desired outcome, we find no significant rise in happiness among DPJ supporters on the day following the election (August 31).Footnote 24
We see two possible explanations for these results. The first is that many supporters of the DPJ became supporters relatively recently, and did not really love the party. The second is that a substantial number of DPJ supporters might think after the election that the DPJ’s victory was too large. In our dataset, 52 % of all respondents wished the DPJ had won less seats, while only 10 % wished they had won more seats. Among the supporters of the DPJ, these 27 % and 19 %, respectively; even many DPJ supporters wished their party’s victory had been smaller.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Japan
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tsutsui, Y., Kimball, M., Ohtake, F. (2016). Koizumi Carried the Day: Did the Japanese Election Results Make People Happy and Unhappy?. In: Ikeda, S., Kato, H., Ohtake, F., Tsutsui, Y. (eds) Behavioral Economics of Preferences, Choices, and Happiness. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55402-8_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55402-8_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo
Print ISBN: 978-4-431-55401-1
Online ISBN: 978-4-431-55402-8
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)