Policymakers and the public are concerned about the role of medical malpractice liability in the rising cost of medical … care. We use variation in the generosity of local juries to identify the causal impact of malpractice liability on medical … the ledger, malpractice liability leads to modest reductions in patient mortality; the value of these more than likely …

physicians under medical liability rules. We theorize that physicians of particular backgrounds will be attracted to regions when … Resource File from 1977 to 2005, we find that the rate of surgeons among practicing physicians increases by 2-2.4 log points … effectively expects physicians to increase practice intensities. We find that this response is nearly three times greater in rural …

incentives facing physicians …

national firm upstream and improved or distributed by local firms downstream. In this context, heightened products liability … may have unintended consequences for consumer safety. Conventional wisdom holds that an increase in tort liability on the … worse, if liability is shared between upstream and downstream firms, higher upstream liability may decrease the liability of …

`Defensive medicine' is a potentially serious social problem: if fear of liability drives health care providers to … administer treatments that do not have worthwhile medical benefits, then the current liability system may generate inefficiencies … question, we analyze the effects of malpractice liability reforms using data on all elderly Medicare beneficiaries treated for …

malpractice liability might also encourage physicians to practice 'defensive medicine.' We use rich new data to examine the … malpractice liability drive physicians to close their practices or not move to areas with high payments? Third, do increases in …The growth of medical malpractice liability costs has the potential to affect the delivery of health care in the U …

are investigated. Physicians report having made substantial changes to their practice in response to the general … environment and to liability pressures. Regression analysis finds that liability pressure increases reports of income and practice … reductions, but direct effects on actual income and productivity are less clear. Liability pressures may lead to a specialization …

nature of the present system of liability rules, which largely hold physicians to standards determined according to industry … evidence has been put forth to date bearing on the relationship between medical liability forces on the one hand and medical …--e.g., damage caps--we estimate that the current liability system plays at most a modest role in inducing higher levels of health …

System survey, we present four findings. First, physicians from states enacting liability reforms that directly reduce … physicians' attitudes, both by reducing the probability of an encounter with the liability system and by changing the nature of …Understanding how and why liability laws and liability reforms alter the medical treatment decision-making process is …

cost of malpractice liability. Specifically, we test whether physicians exploit provisions of bankruptcy laws and adjust … with higher liability risk, where physicians would have greater incentive to insure against financial risks. Our findings … (self-protection) or size (self-insurance) of a loss. However, in the case of liability risk, especially physician responses …