The body of literature on purely democratic countries can sometimes fail to explain the behavior of government in semi-democratic African countries. Empirical and theoretical political economic papers find that public funds target ruling party supporters and swing districts. Our results,...

The body of literature on purely democratic countries can sometimes fail to explain the behavior of government in semi-democratic African countries. Empirical and theoretical political economic papers find that public funds target ruling party supporters and swing districts. Our results,...

By applying regression discontinuity designs to a set of household surveys from the 1980–90s, we 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...

A new analysis of large-sample surveys in five comparable Sub-Saharan African countries allows measuring for the first time inequality of opportunity in Africa, aside inequality of resources and of living standards. We confirm the prevalence of high levels of inequality among the region’s...

In Mali, the situation of cotton growing households has traditionally been considered as more favorable than that of food crop producers. However, official statistics on poverty suggest that the cotton growing region of Sikasso is among the poorest regions of the country and that cotton...

Using a 2006 household survey in Mali, we compare current poverty rates and inequality levels with counterfactual ones in the absence of migration and remittances. With proper hypotheses on migrants and a selection model, we are able to impute a counterfactual income for households currently...

In Africa, boundaries delineated during the colonial era now divide young independent states. By applying regression discontinuity designs to a large set of surveys covering the 1986-2001 period, this paper identifies many large and significant jumps in welfare at the borders between five...

This paper examines for the first time inequality of opportunity for income in Africa, by analyzing large-sample surveys, all providing information on individuals' parental background, in five comparable Sub-Saharan countries: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar and Uganda. We compute...