Religious practice and student performance: Evidence from Ramadan fasting.

• We investigate how Ramadan intensity affects educational outcomes. • Longer fasting hours increase student performance across Muslim countries but not other countries. •. Longer fasting hours reduce the performance gap between Muslim and non-Muslim students across European countries. • This effect in European countries occurs in schools with a higher cohort-share of Muslim students We investigate how the intensity of Ramadan affects educational outcomes by exploiting spatio-temporal variation in annual fasting hours. Longer fasting hours are related to increases in student performance in a panel of TIMSS test scores (1995–2019) across Muslim countries but not other countries. Results are confirmed in a panel of PISA test scores (2003–2018) allowing within country-wave comparisons of Muslim to non-Muslim students across Europe. We provide evidence that a demanding Ramadan affects PISA test scores of Muslim students only in cohorts with a large share of co-religionists. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that shared experiences during more intensive Ramadans facilitate the formation of social capital and a social identity conducive to learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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