On February 17, 2025, a co-authored paper by Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Hamza Umer (Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study), Professor Takashi Kurosaki (Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University) and Professor Kazuhiro Obayashi (Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University) titled “Religiosity and risk-taking of Muslims: evidence from lab and field” was published in Empirica (No. 52). This paper analyzes the correlation between religiosity and risk-taking among the Muslim population. It reveals robust evidence that very religious people, as measured by the frequency of prayers (a ritual-based measure), take less risk than less religious people. Additionally, the paper argues that prayer frequency is a relatively useful proxy for measuring Muslims’ religiosity.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10663-025-09642-6