Was Brexit triggered by the old and unhappy? Or by financial feelings?

Federica Liberini, Andrew Oswald, Eugenio Proto and Michela Redoano

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019, vol. 161, issue C, 287-302

Abstract: On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom voted in favour of ‘Brexit’. This paper is an attempt to understand why. It examines the micro-econometric predictors of anti-EU sentiment. The paper provides the first evidence for the idea that a key channel of influence was through a person’s feelings about his or her own financial situation. By contrast, the paper finds relatively little regression-equation evidence for the widely discussed idea that Brexit was favoured by the old and the unhappy. The analysis shows that UK citizens’ feelings about their incomes were a substantially better predictor of pro-Brexit views than their actual incomes. This seems an important message for economists, because the subject of economics has typically avoided the study of human feelings in favour of ‘objective’ data.

Keywords: Referendum; European Union; Satisfaction; Happiness; Voting; Happiness; Discontent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:161:y:2019:i:c:p:287-302

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.03.024

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