The political economy of occult belief in Africa can highlight hidden social and political conflict in times of transition which remain otherwise undetected. This has been demonstrated in taking the development of witchcraft accusations over time as indicator, and the Nupe of Northern Nigeria as...

This contribution aims to emphasize that the French colonial intervention in Morocco represents a fundamental historical rupture that should not be bracketed but instead must be integrated within a process of revisiting the teleological assumptions about what constitutes the contemporary...

Objective – The objectives of the research were (1) to determine and to analyze the problems in managing productive zakat, (2) to seek the factors constraining the success and the failure in managing productive zakat, and (3) to find utilization of productive zakat model. Methodology/Technique...

We study how the U.S. Catholic clergy abuse scandals affected religious participation, religious beliefs, and pro-social behavior. To estimate the causal effects of the scandals on various outcomes, we conduct an event-study analysis that exploits the fine distribution of the scandals over space...

This paper offers a novel account of the rise of religious freedom. Religious and political power have been bound together since pre-history. As a consequence, there was an absence of religious freedom throughout most of history. Even when religious dissidents were not being persecuted for their...

Dating from the mid-1970s, Islamic banking and finance (IBF) is an ongoing experiment to critique the conventional interest-based financial system and to construct an alternative “Sharia-compliant” industry. This chapter develops an analytic typology to describe how states respond to this...

Trust is an essential element of individuals' willingness to engage in economic activity such as investment. Because cultural institutions influence individuals' trust, I examine whether shocks to trust in a prominent cultural institution have crossover effects on households' investment...

This essay, originally presented as a talk at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis on April 30, 2023, as part of the Midwest LGBTQ+ Rights Conference and the Washington University Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, takes up the new intersectional and anti-racist...

This paper empirically tests Max Weber's thesis on how religious narratives, particularly the Protestant Ethic, influence attitudes toward wealth redistribution. Weber suggested that the Protestant Reformation, led to the belief that economic success was a sign of divine favor, legitimizing...