Roland Pongou
Biographic Data
| ID | 298735 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Roland Pongou |
| GIVEN NAMES | Roland |
| FAMILY NAME | Pongou |
| SIGNATURE | PONGOU R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ottawa |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3567-4219 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Impact of household food insecurity on the use of maternal health services in the Savanes region, Togo
Findings from this study highlight the link between food insecurity and maternal healthcare utilization, emphasizing the need to address food insecurity at its root in programs aiming to improve maternal health. Prioritizing poverty reduction through education, income, women's socioeconomic empowerment and food self-sufficiency is crucial. Hence, intersectorial interventions including prenatal nutrition programs are essential to improving access …
Democracy Reduces Inequality
Justice, inclusion, and incentives
How does justice affect individual incentives and efficiency in a political economy? We show that elementary principles of distributive justice guarantee the existence of a self-enforcing contract whereby agents non-cooperatively choose their inputs and derive utility from their pay. Chief among these principles is that your pay should not depend on your name, and a more productive individual should not earn less. We generalize our analysis to in…
The Interplay Between Colonial History and Postcolonial Institutions
We study the long-term impacts of Cameroon’s colonial history and its interplay with postcolonial institutions. We exploit both the arbitrary division of the German Colony of Kamerun between France and Britain after the First World War and the 1961 reunification of British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroon. Comparing individuals from the same ethnic homeland but living on either side of the British-French border within Cameroon, we find that…
Identity and Covid-19 in Canada
Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, growing evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China has demonstrated the unequal social and economic burden of this health crisis. Yet, in Canada, studies assessing the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of COVID-19, and how these determinants vary by gender and ethnic minority status, remain scarce. As new strains of COVID-19 emerge, it is important to understand the disparities…
A systematic review of the effect of performance-based financing interventions on out-of-pocket expenses to improve access to, and the utilization of, maternal health services across health sectors in…
Examining the Implementation of the Performance-Based Financing Equity Strategy in Improving Access and Utilization of Maternal Health Services in Cameroon
Performance-based financing (PBF)-a supply-side strategy that incentivizes health providers based on predefined quality and quantity criteria-introduced an innovative approach to reaching the poor by means of using PBF equity instruments. These PBF equity instruments include paying providers more to reach out to poor women, selecting services used by the poor, subsidizing user fees to reduce out-of-pocket expenses, and adding complementary demand…
Optimal interventions in networks during a pandemic
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00148-022-00916-y
New technology, better economy? The heterogeneous impact of colonial railroads in Nigeria
Mortality convergence of twins and singletons in sub-Saharan Africa
While there is a substantial amount of literature documenting that twins have higher mortality than singletons, that literature does not address the questions of whether this disadvantage of twins eventually disappears and if so, at what age
Ethnic Inequality
We study the causes of inequality in human capital accumulation across ethnic and religious groups. An overlapping generations model in which agents decide how much time to invest in human capital versus ethnic capital shows that the demand for human capital is affected positively by parental and group’s older cohort human capital and negatively by group size. Two ex ante identical groups may diverge in human capital accumulation, with the diverg…
Sex Differences in Early-Age Mortality
The preconception origins hypothesis holds that some of the preconception and prenatal environmental factors that have been shown to determine the offspring sex ratio also explain sex differences in early-age mortality (Pongou 2013). It extends and complements the biological hypothesis, which affirms that the mortality sex gap originates in biological and genetic differences between the sexes. As such, it offers a broad framework for understandin…
Why Is Infant Mortality Higher in Boys Than in Girls? A New Hypothesis Based on Preconception Environment and Evidence From a Large Sample of Twins
Infant mortality is higher in boys than girls in most parts of the world. This has been explained by sex differences in genetic and biological makeup, with boys being biologically weaker and more susceptible to diseases and premature death. At the same time, recent studies have found that numerous preconception or prenatal environmental factors affect the probability of a baby being conceived male or female. I propose that these environmental fac…
Crossing Boundaries
Internal and international migration increasingly continues to be of global importance for development policies and programmes, but the dearth of data on migration for African countries and the limited focus on the structural conditions that motivate migration from specific localities within the region remain glaring. In this study, we examine the patterns and drivers of migration in Cameroon, focusing on the dynamics of rural–urban migration, mi…
Household and community socioeconomic and environmental determinants of child nutritional status in Cameroon
Both household and community factors have significant impact on child health in Cameroon. Understanding these relationships can facilitate design of age- and community-specific intervention programs
Why Is Infant Mortality Higher in Boys Than in Girls? A New Hypothesis Based on Preconception Environment and Evidence From a Large Sample of Twins
Infant mortality is higher in boys than girls in most parts of the world. This has been explained by sex differences in genetic and biological makeup, with boys being biologically weaker and more susceptible to diseases and premature death. At the same time, recent studies have found that numerous preconception or prenatal environmental factors affect the probability of a baby being conceived male or female. I propose that these environmental fac…
New technology, better economy? The heterogeneous impact of colonial railroads in Nigeria
Ethnic Inequality
We study the causes of inequality in human capital accumulation across ethnic and religious groups. An overlapping generations model in which agents decide how much time to invest in human capital versus ethnic capital shows that the demand for human capital is affected positively by parental and group’s older cohort human capital and negatively by group size. Two ex ante identical groups may diverge in human capital accumulation, with the diverg…
Crossing Boundaries
Internal and international migration increasingly continues to be of global importance for development policies and programmes, but the dearth of data on migration for African countries and the limited focus on the structural conditions that motivate migration from specific localities within the region remain glaring. In this study, we examine the patterns and drivers of migration in Cameroon, focusing on the dynamics of rural–urban migration, mi…
Optimal interventions in networks during a pandemic
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00148-022-00916-y
Sex Differences in Early-Age Mortality
The preconception origins hypothesis holds that some of the preconception and prenatal environmental factors that have been shown to determine the offspring sex ratio also explain sex differences in early-age mortality (Pongou 2013). It extends and complements the biological hypothesis, which affirms that the mortality sex gap originates in biological and genetic differences between the sexes. As such, it offers a broad framework for understandin…
Household and community socioeconomic and environmental determinants of child nutritional status in Cameroon
Both household and community factors have significant impact on child health in Cameroon. Understanding these relationships can facilitate design of age- and community-specific intervention programs
Crossing Boundaries
Internal and international migration increasingly continues to be of global importance for development policies and programmes, but the dearth of data on migration for African countries and the limited focus on the structural conditions that motivate migration from specific localities within the region remain glaring. In this study, we examine the patterns and drivers of migration in Cameroon, focusing on the dynamics of rural–urban migration, mi…
Why Is Infant Mortality Higher in Boys Than in Girls? A New Hypothesis Based on Preconception Environment and Evidence From a Large Sample of Twins
Infant mortality is higher in boys than girls in most parts of the world. This has been explained by sex differences in genetic and biological makeup, with boys being biologically weaker and more susceptible to diseases and premature death. At the same time, recent studies have found that numerous preconception or prenatal environmental factors affect the probability of a baby being conceived male or female. I propose that these environmental fac…
Sex Differences in Early-Age Mortality
The preconception origins hypothesis holds that some of the preconception and prenatal environmental factors that have been shown to determine the offspring sex ratio also explain sex differences in early-age mortality (Pongou 2013). It extends and complements the biological hypothesis, which affirms that the mortality sex gap originates in biological and genetic differences between the sexes. As such, it offers a broad framework for understandin…
Ethnic Inequality
We study the causes of inequality in human capital accumulation across ethnic and religious groups. An overlapping generations model in which agents decide how much time to invest in human capital versus ethnic capital shows that the demand for human capital is affected positively by parental and group’s older cohort human capital and negatively by group size. Two ex ante identical groups may diverge in human capital accumulation, with the diverg…
New technology, better economy? The heterogeneous impact of colonial railroads in Nigeria
Mortality convergence of twins and singletons in sub-Saharan Africa
While there is a substantial amount of literature documenting that twins have higher mortality than singletons, that literature does not address the questions of whether this disadvantage of twins eventually disappears and if so, at what age
Examining the Implementation of the Performance-Based Financing Equity Strategy in Improving Access and Utilization of Maternal Health Services in Cameroon
Performance-based financing (PBF)-a supply-side strategy that incentivizes health providers based on predefined quality and quantity criteria-introduced an innovative approach to reaching the poor by means of using PBF equity instruments. These PBF equity instruments include paying providers more to reach out to poor women, selecting services used by the poor, subsidizing user fees to reduce out-of-pocket expenses, and adding complementary demand…
Optimal interventions in networks during a pandemic
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00148-022-00916-y
The Interplay Between Colonial History and Postcolonial Institutions
We study the long-term impacts of Cameroon’s colonial history and its interplay with postcolonial institutions. We exploit both the arbitrary division of the German Colony of Kamerun between France and Britain after the First World War and the 1961 reunification of British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroon. Comparing individuals from the same ethnic homeland but living on either side of the British-French border within Cameroon, we find that…
Identity and Covid-19 in Canada
Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, growing evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China has demonstrated the unequal social and economic burden of this health crisis. Yet, in Canada, studies assessing the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of COVID-19, and how these determinants vary by gender and ethnic minority status, remain scarce. As new strains of COVID-19 emerge, it is important to understand the disparities…
A systematic review of the effect of performance-based financing interventions on out-of-pocket expenses to improve access to, and the utilization of, maternal health services across health sectors in…
Justice, inclusion, and incentives
How does justice affect individual incentives and efficiency in a political economy? We show that elementary principles of distributive justice guarantee the existence of a self-enforcing contract whereby agents non-cooperatively choose their inputs and derive utility from their pay. Chief among these principles is that your pay should not depend on your name, and a more productive individual should not earn less. We generalize our analysis to in…
Impact of household food insecurity on the use of maternal health services in the Savanes region, Togo
Findings from this study highlight the link between food insecurity and maternal healthcare utilization, emphasizing the need to address food insecurity at its root in programs aiming to improve maternal health. Prioritizing poverty reduction through education, income, women's socioeconomic empowerment and food self-sufficiency is crucial. Hence, intersectorial interventions including prenatal nutrition programs are essential to improving access …
Democracy Reduces Inequality
Economics (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Demography (6 works) · Geography (6 works) · Global Maternal and Child Health (6 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Demographic economics (5 works) · Economic growth (5 works) · Environmental health (5 works)