Mira Serhal

PhD Candidate in Economics · CY Cergy Paris University & ESSEC Business School

I am a PhD candidate in economics at THEMA, CY Cergy Paris University and ESSEC Business School under the supervision of Olivier Donni and Maëlys de la Rupelle. I am also currently a temporary lecturer at CY Cergy Paris University.

My research lies at the intersection of development economics, family economics, and gender economics. I study how legal reforms and climate shocks affect violence against women in India, and how households allocate time between paid work and childcare in France.

Development Economics Family Economics Gender Economics Climate Change Applied Microeconomics
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Portrait of Mira Serhal

BackgroundEducation

  1. 2022 — Present
    PhD in Economics
    CY Cergy Paris University (THEMA) & ESSEC Business School
  2. 2022 — 2023
    Advanced Master in Business Administration Research
    ESSEC Business School
  3. 2021 — 2022
    MSc in Economic Analysis
    CY Cergy Paris University
  4. 2018 — 2020
    MSc in Economics
    American University of Beirut
  5. 2015 — 2018
    BSc in Economics
    American University of Beirut

PublicationsPublished Work

Publication

Law versus Custom: Can Personal Status Reforms Change Marital Practices?

joint with Maëlys de la Rupelle
Revue d'économie du développement, 2026

PDF version

Laws governing marriage and divorce have multifaceted effects on women. This article examines whether personal status law reforms can change deeply rooted marital customs, exploiting India's 2019 ban on instant triple talaq. This practice let a Muslim man unilaterally and irrevocably end a marriage by pronouncing "talaq" (divorce) three times. Using three waves of National Family Health Survey data with a difference-in-differences framework, we find that the probability of divorce among Muslim women fell slightly after the reform, but the effect vanishes among ever-married women. This is likely reflecting a shift toward other divorce forms such as khula (women-initiated divorce), sometimes prompted by husbands seeking to lower their financial obligations. A near-significant rise in spousal abandonment also emerges following the law. These findings show that prohibiting a specific practice may curb certain harms while generating unintended consequences, underscoring how legal reform often struggles to reshape marital practices embedded in social hierarchies.

ResearchPapers & Projects

Working Papers & Work in Progress

Working Paper

The Effect of Banning Instant Triple Divorce on Domestic Violence: Evidence from the Triple Talaq Law in India

joint with Maëlys de la Rupelle (Thema - CY Cergy Paris University)

This paper studies the effect of India’s 2019 criminalization of instant triple divorce on domestic violence against Muslim women. Exploiting the timing of the reform and variation in exposure between Muslim and non-Muslim women, we use a difference-in-differences design with National Family Health Survey data (NFHS-4 and NFHS-5) to estimate the reform’s effect on intimate partner violence. Focusing on Muslims with lower castes, we find that physical violence against Muslim women rose by 6.8 percentage points relative to non-Muslim women following the reform, an effect that is absent in the full sample. Using ACLED data, we find that the effect is concentrated in states where Muslim political organizations were already active before the reform, pointing that the act mattered more where Muslim organisations were in a position to publicise and contest it.

Working Paper

Childcare Time in France: The Impact of Parents' Work Time

joint with Olivier Donni (Thema - CY Cergy Paris University)

This paper examines how parents' own and partner's work time affect detailed categories of childcare time using the 2009–2010 French Time Use Survey, in which both parents are observed across one weekday and one weekend diary day. We develop what is, to our knowledge, the first structural framework to model the allocation of childcare time over the course of the week, distinguishing between routine and non-routine activities and estimating both between- and within-type specifications with work time instrumented by hourly wages, socio-professional work-time averages, and departmental unemployment rates. Our findings reveal a consistent trade-off between work time and childcare, with the largest declines concentrated in routine care. Non-routine activities are comparatively preserved, suggesting that parents protect the interactions they view as higher-value while more easily outsourcing or substituting routine tasks. Consistent with this, children’s time in paid childcare services rises with parental work time. Intrahousehold responses differ sharply by gender: When mothers work more, fathers increase childcare—especially non-routine activities—whereas when fathers work more, mothers do not increase their childcare time, with adjustment occurring through paid care. This asymmetry underscores entrenched gender roles and the central role of mothers' labor supply in shaping paternal involvement and demand for formal childcare.

Work in Progress

The Effect of Floods on Gender-Based Violence in India

In this paper, I estimate the effect of flood exposure on crimes against women in India. Combining satellite-derived flood data with the court cases filed in India’s lower judiciary between 2010 and 2017, I exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the timing and intensity of flood events across 576 Indian districts. Using the heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences estimator of de Chaisemartin and D’Haultfœuille (2024), I find that flood exposure significantly increases filed cases of sexual harassment, domestic violence, and total crimes against women. I additionally show that the share of domestic violence in total court cases rises after floods, indicating a disproportionate gender-specific effect beyond any general increase in criminal activity. The findings highlight the gendered consequences of climate-related disasters and underscore the need for gender-sensitive disaster response policies.

PresentationsConferences & Seminars

2026
  • 20263rd Development Economics Workshop, Durham University Business School
2025
  • 2025Summer School in Development Economics, Prato
  • 20255th International Conference on Development Economics (ICDE), Paris Nanterre University
  • 202541èmes Journées de la Microéconomie Appliquée (JMA), Poitiers
  • 20254th Workshop on Gender and Economics, University of Luxembourg
  • 2025ESSEC Student Research Seminar, Cergy
  • 2025EUDN PhD Workshop on Development Economics, Clermont-Ferrand
  • 2025ESSEC Student Research Seminar, Cergy
2024
  • 2024AFSE Annual Congress, Bordeaux
  • 2024Workshop "Gender Issues and Development", Paris Nanterre University
  • 2024THEMA Theoretical and Applied Economics Seminar, Cergy
  • 2024ESSEC Student Research Seminar, Cergy
2023
  • 2023IOEA Seminar, Cargèse
  • 2023ESSEC Student Research Seminar, Cergy

TeachingCourses

CY Cergy Paris University

Teaching Assistant

  • Computer-lab tutorial sessions using SAS, covering data preparation, descriptive statistics, and OLS estimation across a range of empirical applications. Using real microeconomic and macroeconomic datasets, students learned to implement econometric methods, interpret results, and connect theoretical concepts to concrete economic questions. Total hours: 54 (3 groups). Language of instruction: French.

  • Tutorial sessions covering the simple and multiple regression model, OLS estimation, statistical inference, and applied topics such as policy evaluation, heteroskedasticity, and measurement error, with hands-on data analysis exercises in R. Total hours: 16.5. Language of instruction: English.

  • Recitation sessions covering the simple and multiple regression model, statistical properties of the OLS estimator (unbiasedness, efficiency, Gauss-Markov), and statistical inference (t-tests, confidence intervals, F-tests), with applied exercises in Excel using real datasets. Total hours: 33 (2 groups). Language of instruction: French.

  • Recitation sessions on Excel as a computational tool for economists: formulas and functions, data lists (sorting, filtering, subtotals) and pivot tables, scenario management and data tables, and an introduction to automation with recorded and hand-written VBA macros. Total hours: 30 (2 groups). Language of instruction: French.

  • Recitation sessions introducing the principles of microeconomics: scarcity and opportunity cost, supply and demand, consumer and producer theory and market equilibrium. Total hours: 12. Language of instruction: French.

  • Recitation sessions on descriptive statistics: simple statistical series, including frequency tables and graphs, cumulative distributions, measures of central tendency, dispersion, shape (skewness and kurtosis), and concentration (Lorenz curve, Gini index); and double statistical series, covering covariance, the linear correlation coefficient, and least-squares linear fitting. Total hours: 15. Language of instruction: French.

ESSEC Business School

Teaching Assistant

  • Recitation sessions covering demand and supply, consumer and producer theory, choice under uncertainty, competitive market equilibrium, and market failures such as externalities and public goods. Total hours: 12. Language of instruction: English.

American University of Beirut

Assistant Instructor

  • Designed exercises covering supply and demand, consumer behavior, costs, market structures, and income distribution, and prepared quizzes for the sections taught. Language of instruction: English.

Teaching Assistant

  • Graded problem sets and held office hours for this Stata-based course covering causality, randomized experiments, bivariate and multivariate regression, dummy variables, omitted variable bias, fixed effects and panel data, difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity design. Language of instruction: English.

  • Recitation sessions for this Elementary Microeconomic Theory course covering general principles of microeconomics, including supply and demand, consumer behavior, costs, market structures, and income distribution. Total hours: 12. Language of instruction: English.