IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bgu/wpaper/1203.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Hanukkah Responsive to Christmas?

Author

Listed:
  • Oren Rigbi

    (Department of Economics,Stanford University and NBER)

  • Ran Abramitzky

    (Department of Economics,Stanford University and NBER)

  • Liran Einav

    (Department of Economics,Stanford University and NBER)

Abstract

We study the extent to which religious activity responds to the presence and activity of other religions. Specifically, we employ individual-level survey data and county-level expenditure data to examine the extent to which Hanukkah celebration among U.S. Jews is driven by the presence of Christmas. We find that (1) Jews with children at home are more likely to celebrate Hanukkah than Jews without children; (2) The correlation of having children at home with Hanukkah celebration is higher for reform Jews than for orthodox Jews, and is higher for strongly-identified Jews. In contrast, this differential correlation is not present for other Jewish holidays; (3) Jewish-related expenditures in Hanukkah are higher in counties with lower share of Jews and in counties with higher share of Catholics. All these findings are consistent with an hypothesis that celebration of religious holidays is designed not only to worship and enjoy, but also to provide a counterbalance for children against competing cultural influences.

Suggested Citation

  • Oren Rigbi & Ran Abramitzky & Liran Einav, 2012. "Is Hanukkah Responsive to Christmas?," Working Papers 1203, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bgu:wpaper:1203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/humsos/Econ/Workingpapers/1203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Iannaccone, Laurence R & Finke, Roger & Stark, Rodney, 1997. "Deregulating Religion: The Economics of Church and State," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 350-364, April.
    2. Gruber Jonathan H, 2005. "Religious Market Structure, Religious Participation, and Outcomes: Is Religion Good for You?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-32, September.
    3. 上垣, 彰 & Uegaki, Akira & ウエガキ, アキラ, 2002. "中東欧における年金改革の現状 : Katharina Muller, The Political Economy of Pension Reform in Central-Eastern Europe, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999, xiv, 222p の紹介と若干のコメント," Discussion Paper 49, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1465-1495, September.
    5. Scott, A., 1995. "Why id Consumption so Seasonal?," Economics Series Working Papers 99172, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Corrigenda [Introduction to the Economics of Religion]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 1941-1941, December.
    7. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    8. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1991. "The Consequences of Religious Market Structure," Rationality and Society, , vol. 3(2), pages 156-177, April.
    9. Jonathan Gruber, 2005. "Religious Market Structure, Religious Participation, and Outcomes: Is Religion Good for You?," NBER Working Papers 11377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Danny Cohen-Zada & Todd Elder, 2012. "Religious Pluralism, Religious Market Shares and the Demand for Religious Schooling," Working Papers 1201, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    2. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Elder, Todd, 2018. "Religious pluralism and the transmission of religious values through education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 325-349.
    3. Laura Birg & Anna Goeddeke, 2016. "Christmas Economics—A Sleigh Ride," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1980-1984, October.
    4. Eiji Yamamura & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Fumio Ohtake, 2023. "Would Monetary Incentives to COVID-19 vaccination reduce motivation?," Papers 2311.11828, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael DeBartolo, 2009. "Does Religious Pluralism Play a Role in Fostering Civic Engagement?," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 54(2), pages 61-71, October.
    2. Lozano, Fernando A., 2012. "What Happened to God's Time? The Evolution of Secularism and Hours of Work in America, Evidence from Religious Holidays," IZA Discussion Papers 6552, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Adrian Chadi & Matthias Krapf, 2017. "The Protestant Fiscal Ethic: Religious Confession And Euro Skepticism In Germany," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1813-1832, October.
    4. Edward N Muller & Joe A Stone, 2013. "Incentives in Judeo-Christian beliefs: an economist's guide to heaven," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(2), pages 1300-1310.
    5. Dimitrova-Grajzl Valentina & Grajzl Peter & Guse A. Joseph & Smith J. Taylor, 2016. "Racial Group Affinity and Religious Giving: Evidence from Congregation-Level Panel Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 689-725, April.
    6. Philipp Ager & Antonio Ciccone, 2018. "Agricultural Risk and the Spread of Religious Communities," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 1021-1068.
    7. Carlos Miguel Lemos & Ross Joseph Gore & Ivan Puga-Gonzalez & F LeRon Shults, 2019. "Dimensionality and factorial invariance of religiosity among Christians and the religiously unaffiliated: A cross-cultural analysis based on the International Social Survey Programme," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-36, May.
    8. Dehejia, Rajeev & DeLeire, Thomas & Luttmer, Erzo F.P., 2007. "Insuring consumption and happiness through religious organizations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 259-279, February.
    9. Gharad Bryan & James J Choi & Dean Karlan, 2021. "Randomizing Religion: the Impact of Protestant Evangelism on Economic Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(1), pages 293-380.
    10. Rajeev Dehejia & Thomas DeLeire & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Josh Mitchell, 2007. "The Role of Religious and Social Organizations in the Lives of Disadvantaged Youth," NBER Chapters, in: The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective, pages 237-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Xu, Xixiong & Li, Yaoqin & Liu, Xing & Gan, Weiyu, 2017. "Does religion matter to corruption? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 34-49.
    12. Nunziata, Luca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2011. "The Implications of Cultural Background on Labour Market Choices: The Case of Religion and Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 6114, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Chang, Lei & Gan, Xiaojun & Mohsin, Muhammad, 2022. "Studying corporate liquidity and regulatory responses for economic recovery in COVID-19 crises," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 211-225.
    14. Hungerman, Daniel M., 2014. "The effect of education on religion: Evidence from compulsory schooling laws," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 52-63.
    15. Pyne, Derek, 2013. "An afterlife capital model of religious choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 32-44.
    16. Sriya Iyer, 2016. "The New Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 395-441, June.
    17. Mendolia, Silvia & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Walker, Ian, 2018. "The Effect of Religiosity on Adolescent Risky Behaviors," IZA Discussion Papers 11566, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Fletcher, Jason & Kumar, Sanjeev, 2014. "Religion and risky health behaviors among U.S. adolescents and adults," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 123-140.
    19. Rupasingha, Anil & Chilton, John b., 2009. "Religious adherence and county economic growth in the US," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 438-450, October.
    20. Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, 2019. "Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters Across Subnational World Districts," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2295-2321.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Religions; Hanukkah; Identity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bgu:wpaper:1203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aamer Abu-Qarn (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edbguil.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.