We study the economic effects of religious practices in the context of theobservance of Ramadan fasting, one of the central tenets of Islam. To establishcausality, we exploit variation in the length of daily fasting due to the interac-tion between the rotating Islamic calendar and a country’s latitude. We reporttwo key, quantitatively meaningful results: (i) longer Ramadan fasting has anegative effect on output growth in Muslim countries, and (ii) it increases sub-jective well-being among Muslims. We find evidence that these patterns areconsistent with a standard club good explanation for the emergence of costlyreligious practices: increased strictness of fasting screens out the less commit-ted members, while the more committed respond with an increase in theirrelative levels of participation. Together, our results underscore that religiouspractices can affect individual behavior and beliefs in ways that have negativeimplications for economic performance, but that nevertheless increase subjec-tive well-being among followers. JEL Codes: E20, O40, O43, Z12.

• As Millions Of People Fast For Ramadan, Does The Economy Suffer? NPR (audio segment), 2014-07-24 00:00:00
• Counting Ramadan: The Economics of Religion Foreign Affairs, 2015-07-14 00:00:00
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• Less work and more pray…make Muhammad poorer but happier The Economist, 2016-07-02 00:00:00
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