At the end of the 1980s, Côte d'Ivoire entered a deep macroeconomic crisis that put an end to the often-praised 'Ivorian miracle'. After the death of the founding father Houphouet- Boigny, unrestrained political competition added to bad economic conditions and led to the nightmare of civil war....

Regression discontinuity designs applied to a set of household surveys from the 1980-90s allow to examine whether Côte d'Ivoire's aggregate wealth was translated at the borders of neighboring countries. At the border of Ghana and at the end of the 1980s, large discontinuities are detected for...