Effects of the political configuration of local governments on subjective well-being

Ana Carcaba, Eduardo Gonzalez and Ruben Arrondo

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Determining what makes a person happy is an extremely complicated task. The objective of this article is to identify the effects of the composition and orientation of governance bodies in municipalities on individual subjective well-being. We connect the data from a large Spanish welfare survey to municipal data covering the aforementioned dimensions of political configuration. Unlike previous country-level studies, we find no significant effects of political orientation when applied to municipal data. In contrast, political alternation emerges as a relevant driver of subjective well-being, especially when corrupt local governments are replaced. Furthermore, the fragmentation in the Spanish political landscape after the 2015 elections improved the level of political competition, which, in turn, exerted a positive effect on subjective well-being.

Keywords: Good governance; subjective well-being; political competition; local government; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I31 I38 M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-12-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hap, nep-pol and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:123248

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