Working Paper: NBER ID: w30694
Authors: Oeindrila Dube; Joshua Blumenstock; Michael Callen
Abstract: Religious adherence has been hard to study in part because it is hard to measure. We develop a new measure of religious adherence, which is granular in both time and space, using anonymized mobile phone transaction records. After validating the measure with traditional data, we show how it can shed light on the nature of religious adherence in Islamic societies. Exploiting random variation in climate, we find that as economic conditions in Afghanistan worsen, people become more religiously observant. The effects are most pronounced in areas where droughts have the biggest economic consequences, such as croplands without access to irrigation.
Keywords: religion; economic shocks; Afghanistan; mobile phone data; religious adherence
JEL Codes: O13; Q1; Q15; Q54; Z10; Z12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Increased religious adherence (Z12) | Maghrib dip (Y60) |
| Adverse economic conditions (climate shocks) (Q54) | Increased religious adherence (Z12) |
| Economic shocks (F69) | Increased religious adherence (Z12) |
| Climate shocks (Q54) | Maghrib dip (Y60) |