Immigrant religious practices and criminality: The case of Ramadan
Carlo Birkholz and
David Gomtsyan
Journal of Comparative Economics, 2023, vol. 51, issue 1, 90-104
Abstract:
Ramadan has attracted negative publicity and criticism in Western countries with large Muslim immigrant populations. Are these attitudes justified? Does the behavior of Muslim immigrants negatively affect host populations during this period? This paper investigates one important dimension of immigrant behavior that is a source of concern: criminal activity. Using the universe of criminal offenses registered by the Swiss police authorities, the paper documents that during Ramadan, crimes committed by Muslim migrants decline by 11%. The mechanism behind this reduction most consistent with the empirical results, is one of changes in beliefs and values of immigrants. Other explanations, such as time spent on community events and declining physical ability play only a minor role.
Keywords: Immigration; Crime; Islam; Ramadan; Religious practices; Beliefs; Hate crimes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 F22 K42 P48 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596722000701
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: Immigrant religious practices and criminality: The case of Ramadan (2022)
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:eee:jcecon:v:51:y:2023:i:1:p:90-104
DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2022.10.003
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Comparative Economics is currently edited by D. Berkowitz and G. Roland
More articles in Journal of Comparative Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().