Excerpt

Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan. Filipe Campante, David H. Yanagizawa-Drott, December 2013, Paper. "We study the economic effects of religious practices in the context of the observance of Ramadan fasting, one of the central tenets of Islam. To establish causality, we exploit variation in the length of the fasting period due to the rotating Islamic calendar. We report two key, quantitatively meaningful results: 1) longer Ramadan fasting has a negative effect on output growth in Muslim countries, and 2) it increases subjective..." Link verified August 21, 2014