Using a large panel data set that samples over 4000 Japanese, we analyze changes in people's subjective well-being (happiness) and altruistic worldview before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake. As a result we find that 1) more people replied that their happiness improved after the...

This paper investigates whether the level of happiness and integrated process of changes in happiness are the same. Using the daily data of two waves of four and six months each, we found that the level of happiness is stationary, whereas the integrated process of changes is non-stationary with...

This paper 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...

Using a monthly survey, this paper finds that supporters of the governing cabinet are significantly happier than non-supporters throughout our sample period. We investigate the reason and examine two hypotheses: 1) happy persons support the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and 2) supporters of...

Extant research has found that an individual's happiness is relative with respect to income, suggesting that it rises with own income and falls as the income of a reference group increases. Some recent studies emphasize that the effect of relative income is mediated by the extent to which people...

This paper investigates whether the level of happiness and integrated process of changes in happiness are the same. Using the daily data of two waves of four and six months each, we found that the level of happiness is stationary, whereas the integrated process of changes is non-stationary with...