Detecting Islamic Calendar Effects on U.S. Meat Consumption: Is the Muslim Population Larger than Widely Assumed?

By employing a parsimonious econometric approach, based on an ARIMA model, this study detects significant Islamic calendar effects on U.S. meat consumption. This surprising finding strengthens the assumption that the size of the Muslim community is considerably larger than assumed by U.S. authorities and NGOs. This study fills a gap in the existing literature which has not addressed this issue with such an approach before. Furthermore, this study suggests considering Islamic festivities for the seasonal adjustment of U.S. time series data.