{"id":{"repo_id":"mit","oai_identifier":"oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/130740"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mit/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/130740","repository":{"repo_id":"mit","name":"MIT","base_url":"https://dspace.mit.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Happiness and voting : evidence from four decades of elections in Europe","abstract":"There is a growing interest among policymakers in the use of subjective well-being (or \\happiness\") data to measure societal progress, as well as to inform and evaluate public policy. Yet despite a sharp rise in the supply of well-being-based policymaking, it remains unclear whether there is any electoral demand for it. In this paper, I study a long-run panel of general elections in Europe and nd that well-being is a strong predictor of election results. National measures of subjective well-being are able to explain more of the variance in governing party vote share than standard macroeconomic indicators typically used in the economic voting literature. Consistent results are found at the individual level when considering subjective well-being and voting intentions, both in cross-sectional and panel analyses.","abstract_html":"There is a growing interest among policymakers in the use of subjective well-being (or \\happiness") data to measure societal progress, as well as to inform and evaluate public policy. Yet despite a sharp rise in the supply of well-being-based policymaking, it remains unclear whether there is any electoral demand for it. In this paper, I study a long-run panel of general elections in Europe and nd that well-being is a strong predictor of election results. National measures of subjective well-being are able to explain more of the variance in governing party vote share than standard macroeconomic indicators typically used in the economic voting literature. Consistent results are found at the individual level when considering subjective well-being and voting intentions, both in cross-sectional and panel analyses.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ward, George(Scientist in business management)Massachusetts Institute of Technology."],"institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Sloan School of Management","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Erin L. Kelly."],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021","date_published":"2021","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:21:55Z","subjects":["Sloan School of Management."],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["MIT theses may be protected by copyright. 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Yet despite a sharp rise in the supply of well-being-based policymaking, it remains unclear whether there is any electoral demand for it. In this paper, I study a long-run panel of general elections in Europe and nd that well-being is a strong predictor of election results. National measures of subjective well-being are able to explain more of the variance in governing party vote share than standard macroeconomic indicators typically used in the economic voting literature. Consistent results are found at the individual level when considering subjective well-being and voting intentions, both in cross-sectional and panel analyses."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["S.M. in Management Research"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Happiness and voting : evidence from four decades of elections in Europe"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Erin L. 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In this paper, I study a long-run panel of general elections in Europe and nd that well-being is a strong predictor of election results. National measures of subjective well-being are able to explain more of the variance in governing party vote share than standard macroeconomic indicators typically used in the economic voting literature. Consistent results are found at the individual level when considering subjective well-being and voting intentions, both in cross-sectional and panel analyses."],"dc:description.degree":["S.M. in Management Research"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130740"],"dc:language.iso":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology"],"dc:rights":["MIT theses may be protected by copyright. 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