Redistributive Impacts of Civil War: The Case of Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

Many least developed countries (LDCs) are plagued by recurring conflict. Conflict impedes sustainable development through various channels, creating conditions fomenting further conflict. Conflict has redistributive impacts, particularly when it erupts in resource-rich countries. Between 2002 and 2011, Côte d'Ivoire faced off two spells of civil war (2002–2007 and 2010–2011) along geographic, religious and ethnic lines. We investigate how the civil war and the associated changes in the political balance impinged on economic outcomes of the affected groups at various income quantiles. Growth incidence curves before–after conflict illustrate the income changes of the respective socioeconomic groups. Accounting for distortions due to individual selection and general-equilibrium spillovers, unconditional quantile regressions fitted by the means of recentered influence functions are used to isolate between-group income gaps attributable to conflict. The results on microdata from 2002 to 2018 Household Living Standards Surveys confirm that as the political tide shifted, the economic fortunes of the affected groups turned. Previously marginalized communities—the northern, Gour and Mandé ethnic, and non-Christian groups—have bridged some of their disadvantage related to their endowments and the market returns on them. These effects are clearest in the upper half of the income spectrum, leading to important changes in social order.