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Danila Serra
Associate Professor of Economics
Texas A&M University
I currently have three primary lines of research, within the broad fields
of: 1) political economy; 2) economics of education; 3) development economics.
My early work focused primarily on corruption. I employed
laboratory experiments to investigate how intrinsic motivations, monetary
incentives, social norms, and market structures impact individuals’
decision to engage in bribery. In the field, much of my past work focused on
subpar behavior of health and education service providers in low-income
countries, and on service recipients’ willingness and ability to hold
them accountable. I currently have three completed papers and one ongoing
project within this line of research. One paper (“Activating Change: The Role of Information
and Beliefs in Social Activism”) employs an online survey experiment in India to examine the
drivers of different forms of online
activism, i.e., petitioning, donations to NGOs and engagement with video
campaigns. A second related paper (“Can Crises Affect Citizen Activism? Evidence from
a Pandemic”) uses quasi-experimental
methods to test the impact of the (largely unexpected) second wave of the
pandemic in India on social activism aimed at reducing fraud and corruption in
the health sector. A third paper (“Proud to belong: The impact of ethics
training on police officers in Ghana”) employs a field experiment
(RCT) in Ghana to test the impact of an ethics training program for traffic
police officers on unethical behavior. Another ongoing project within this line of research (“Who self-select into committees: The
pro-social or the corrupt?”
), employs a laboratory experiment to investigate self-selection into
committees managing public funds, the decision to embezzle such funds and
individuals’ responsiveness to citizen accountability mechanisms such as
town hall meetings.
My second line of research focuses on the economics of education, asking
primarily what interventions could succeed in increasing diversity male- and
white-dominated fields of study. My previous work (“Gender differences in the choice of major:
The importance of female role models”) found that in-person exposure to female role models could
attract more women into economics. In ongoing follow-up work, my coauthor
and aim to assess the impact
of the role model intervention on labor market outcomes. Another ongoing project employs an
RCT targeting high school counselors in Texas with the aim of increasing
awareness about the economics major. In another project, joint with Daniel Gomez-Vasquez (PhD candidate,
Texas A&M University), we employ an RCT aimed at increasing well-being and
retention among under-represented economics majors at TAMU through
encouragement emails sent on behalf of the economics department. I am also
working on a project in Peru,
joint with Marcos Agurto (Universidad de Piura) and Sudipta Sarangi (Virginia Tech University) aimed at
increasing interest in the engineering major among female high school students.
We recently piloted a novel RCT consisting in Instagram reels targeting female
students, and information videos targeting teachers and shared through
WhatsApp. New work
with Celeste Carruthers (University of Tennessee), Kalena
Cortes (Texas A&M) and Ishara Casellas
Connors (Texas A&M), will examine the impact of targeted coaching programs
on student transfers from community colleges to 4-year colleges.
In February 2025, I hosted an “Ask Me Anything”
session organized by JPAL-Africa to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The AMA has been now converted into a blog
post (thanks to Paul C. J. Berthe), featuring some of my research and thoughts on
gender equality in education.
My third line of research focuses primarily on gender disparities in low-income countries.
A project
in Somalia employs an RCT to examine whether exposure to male or female
role models (college students) affects gender attitudes and educational
aspirations, education outcomes of primary school students. A project in Uganda evaluates the
impact of female leadership in Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs)
through an RCT implemented in collaboration with multiple organizations
managing VSLAs in the country. Another project in Northern Uganda employs lab-in-the-field experiments and
surveys to examine the long-term impact of extreme war victimization (i.e., childhood abduction) on women's mental
health, preferences, and socio-economic outcomes. A follow-up study
assesses, through an RCT, the effects of unconditional cash transfers,
group-based coaching and group-based mental health counseling on the well-being
of a larger sample of women who were victimized as children.
Together with Raymond Robertson (Bush School, TAMU), Farzana
Afridi (Indian Statistical Institute) and Hamna Ahmed
(Lahore School of Economics), I was awarded an IZA|G2LM
large grant to investigate (through surveys and RCTs) barriers to
women’s career advancement in the apparel industry in Bangladesh, India
and Pakistan. This work is taking place in collaboration with the H&M
Group.
Finally, I have ongoing experimental/behavioral projects
aimed at identifying or correcting biases in hiring or career advancement. One
project joint with Elira Kuka
(George Washington University) uses an RCT to evaluate the impact of a
streamlined mentoring program (the Adopt a
Paper program) on the academic success of junior faculty in economics.