Abstract
AbstractPublic broadcasting of all games of high school baseball tournaments attests to their popularity in Japan. The present study uses individual‐level data to test the hypothesis that nostalgia influences the level of happiness of Japanese people. Its key findings were: (i) the number of wins by a prefecture team increased the happiness level of its residents; (ii) this effect applied only to residents of large cities; and (iii) for urban migrants, originally from rural areas, the effect of their home team wins exceeded that of the wins of their host area team. This effect was significant in cases where the host area cultural climate differed from that of the migrant home area. These findings suggest that a scarcity of ‘identity’ goods related to the residential community increases high school baseball influence on happiness. Furthermore, the influence of nostalgia for home on migrants’ happiness is greater than their attachment to their current residential community.
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