Civil conflict and firm recovery: Evidence from post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire

This paper examines how firms recover after a short, but severe, external shock. Thanks to a rich firm-level database, we follow surviving formal enterprises before, during and after the 2011 post-electoral crisis in Cˆote d’Ivoire. Main findings are summarized as follows. First, recovery was rapid in the first year but imperfect: three years after the shock, firms did not reach their previous level of productivity. Second, we show a wide heterogeneity in recovery across firms (within the same industry). Young and local firms were more able to rebound after the crisis. In addition, credit-constrained firms were less resilient, highlighting the importance of access to credit in post-crisis periods. Finally, the recovery was higher for laborintensive firms but firms relying more on skilled workers and managers faced a lower rebound.