文摘
To our knowledge, it is the first paper to test the retrospective voting model by showing that subjective well-being explains variation in voting intention that goes beyond what is captured by traditional monetary and financial indicators. Obvious concerns when exploring the relationship between voting and well-being are reverse causality and omitted variable bias. We address this concern in two different ways: We analyze the responses of a sub-sample of ideologically neutral individuals (i.e. those who do not have a priori party bias) whose well-being should not be affected by the identity of the ruling party per se. We use difference-in-differences analysis to identify how voter intention is affected by a negative shock to well-being: the death of a spouse. This latter set-up not only provides a way to address concerns related to the identification of the effect running from SWB to voting, but also allows us to address voters’ rationality.