Religiosity and Terrorism: Evidence from Ramadan Fasting

Roland Hodler, Paul Raschky and Anthony Strittmatter

No 13257, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This study examines the effect of religiosity on terrorism by focusing on one of the five pillars of Islam: Ramadan fasting. For identification, we exploit two facts: First, daily fasting from dawn to sunset during Ramadan is considered mandatory for most Muslims. Second, the Islamic calendar is not synchronized with the solar cycle. We find a robust negative effect of more intense Ramadan fasting on terrorist events within districts and country-years in predominantly Muslim countries. We argue that this effect partly operates through a decrease in public support for terrorism, which in turn reduces the operational capabilities of terrorist groups.

Keywords: Terrorism; Economics of religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 H56 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13257 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Religiosity and Terrorism: Evidence from Ramadan Fasting (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13257

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13257

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().