2007-07-01 Alpaslan Akay Department of Economics, Göteborg University, Sweden Gokhan Karabulut

1. Do Religious Rituals Promote Cooperation and Punishment?-Evidence from Ramadan 2007-07-01 Alpaslan Akay Department of Economics, Göteborg University, Sweden Gokhan Karabulut Department of Economics, Istanbul University, Turkey Peter Martinsson Department of Economics, Göteborg University, Sweden

2. Introduction • Religion influences our daily life in many perspectives from our legal system to our calendar • We are also affected by several religious rituals such as Easter, Christmas and Ramadan and by many others • The effects and functions of religion and religious rituals have been discussed since Durkheim (1912), Geertz (1966) and Weber (1930) • It has recently been argued that one of the primary functions of religion and religious rituals is to increase solidarity and cohesion in a society implying that pro-social behaviour of the individuals such as cooperation and trust should be promoted (Sosis and Ruffle (2003, 2004, 2005); Iannaccone (1992, 1994)) • Then, it is crucial to know whether religion and religious rituals can help to solve collective action problems in a society

3. Introduction • Ramadan is the one of the most celebrated religious rituals in the world followed partly or fully by more than 1.5 billion Muslims • Ramadan imposes a social shock on ordinary daily activities. It affects what people dress, talk etc. during one month • Ramadan contains the fifth pillar of Islam, which is fasting(sawm or siyam). Fasting requires strict avoidance of fluids and nourishment from dawn (sahur) to sunset (iftar) and it is obligatory for every Muslim (Quran, 2:183-84) • Islamic scholars indicate that the aim of fasting is to improve the ability of empathy for the poor, sharing, kindness, generosity, forgiveness and self-control (Buhkari, 1987)

4. Hypothesis • H0: No effect of Ramadan month on the cooperation and punishment levels • H0: No effect of high degree of participationinto fasting on cooperation and punishment levels

5. Experimental Design • Two treatments: Ramandan and Non-Ramadan • The Ramadan experiment is conducted in Leylat al-Qadr (The Night of Power) which is the 27th day of Ramadan. The non-Ramadan experiment is conducted after one month of Ramadan. • Each has two linear public good experiments, one without, and one with punishment possibility. • The designs are the same as Gächter et al. (2004), and Gächter and Herrmann (2006). • We use 90 undergraduate students in Istanbul University, Turkey, which is a secular country. 30 groups each with three anonymous subjects. • We elicit the subjects’ beliefs about how much the others on average have contributed. We reward correct guesses by applying the same monetary incentive scheme as in Gächter and Renner (2006).

6. Results 1

7. Results 2

8. Results 3

9. Results 4

10. Conclusions • Ramadan month influence the cooperation behavior significantly • negative but its effect on punishment behavior is insignifcant, • In general, there is no difference in contribution and punishment levels between full-fasters and non full-fasters, • In Ramadan, the full-fasters contribute an insiginifcantly higher amount • than non full-fasters, • In non-Ramadan, the non full-fasters contribute significantly higher than full-fasters, • The sub-group which change their behavior is non full-fasters.