The effect of religion on Muslims’ charitable contributions to members of a non‐Muslim majority

Abstract

We investigate the effects of religion on charitable contributions of Muslims who are in a minority to non‐Muslims who are in a majority and to fellow Muslims. We find that religious thinking leads to significantly more charitable giving by 10%. The effect of religious thinking is dependent on the ethnic identity of the recipient. We find a significant effect on giving behavior toward relatively more privileged out‐group members (Han Chinese), but a small and generally insignificant effect toward in‐group members (fellow Muslims). With religious thinking, prosocial behavior toward out‐group members is significantly higher by 14%, which is mainly explained by the religiosity of Muslims. Our results have implications for our understanding of the influence of Islamic rules on Muslims’ attitudes and behavior toward non‐Muslims and for the design of fundraising mechanisms in Muslim communities.

How Does Religion Affect Giving to Outgroups and Secular Organizations? A Systematic Literature Review

“…A few studies also measured religiosity by asking if individuals followed specific religious practices such as keeping Shabbat or Kosher (Sansani and Rozental 2018). Experimental studies often used religious primes such as prayer, religious or God-related thinking, and religious locations (Greenway et al 2018;Morton et al 2020;Thunstrom 2020;Xygalatas et al 2016). Specific religious or denominational identities were also used to compare giving practices across various faith traditions (Hill and Vaidyanathan 2011;Ottoni-Wilhelm 2010).…”

“…In measuring giving to outgroups, in particular, studies most often used measures such as giving to other individuals who are following a different religion than the giver. For instance, in one experiment, researchers tracked whether Muslim individuals donated when presented with non-Muslim students in need (Morton et al 2020). Other studies tracked giving to Muslim charity organizations by professed Christians (Shepherd et al 2019).…”

“…While we support introducing a more nuanced analysis of the nature of religiosity and secularity in the study of charitable giving and organizations, our literature review follows the accepted definitions in this paper. We hope that our analysis of religion's role in giving both to secular organizations and individuals or organizations outside of one's own faith group, or outgroups (Morton et al 2020;Cheung and Kuah 2019), may help to expand the study of religiosity outside the organizations committed to a narrow definition of religious activity, as well the interaction of religion and the secular when focused on general social welfare and the common good.…”

“…The existing studies identify two types of religious giving-the religious motivation behind charitable gifts and giving that explicitly goes to religious organizations (Vacek 2010;Vaidyanathan and Snell 2011)-whereas giving to outgroup and secular organizations is measured as giving to individuals outside of one's own faith group (Morton et al 2020) and giving to non-congregation and non-religious organizations (Cheung and Kuah 2019). Nonetheless, these categorizations, as mentioned above, are problematic because, unlike congregations and denominations that are solely religious, there are organizations that do not have an explicitly religious purpose but maintain elements of religion in either their identity or activity.…”

Introduction to the JPET special issues commemorating works of James Andreoni, Theodore Bergstrom, Larry Blume, and Hal Varian

“…These insights have contributed to inspiring other researchers to work in the area. Several papers in the special issue take inspiration, directly of indirectly, from these two papers of Andreoni, including Colasante, García‐Gallego, Georgantzis, Morone, and Temerario (), Long (), Morton, Ou, and Qin (), and Théroude and Zylbersztejn (). For researchers new to the areas of Andreoni's papers and to students of public economics, the contribution of Muñoz‐Herrera and Nikiforakis will be an invaluable resource.…”