IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v31y1999i7p779-794.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of medical malpractice insurance cost on physician behaviour: the role of income and tort signal effects

Author

Listed:
  • James Thornton

Abstract

The paper examines the impact of medical malpractice insurance cost on physician behaviour. Changes in malpractice insurance premiums can potentially influence physician behaviour directly through income effects from changes in medical practice earnings, and indirectly through tort signal effects that indicate exposure to malpractice risk. A structural model of the physician/firm is estimated to assess the significance, magnitude, and relative importance of income and tort signal effects of premium changes on physician time allocation and service supply. Using data on solo practice physicians, evidence is found of both income and tort signal effects for primary care physicians and surgeons. Results also indicate that income effects have a relatively larger impact on measures of physician behaviour such as services provided and fees, while tort signal effects, which reflect defensive measures, have a much smaller impact.

Suggested Citation

  • James Thornton, 1999. "The impact of medical malpractice insurance cost on physician behaviour: the role of income and tort signal effects," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(7), pages 779-794.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:31:y:1999:i:7:p:779-794
    DOI: 10.1080/000368499323751
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/000368499323751
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/000368499323751?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fredrik Carlsen & Jostein Grytten & Irene Skau, 2011. "Physician response to fee changes: using inheritance as a quasi-natural experiment," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(15), pages 1913-1922.
    2. Sverre Grepperud, 2005. "Medical Errors: Getting the Incentives Right," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 307-326, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hillebrand, Eric & Schnabl, Gunther & Ulu, Yasemin, 2009. "Japanese foreign exchange intervention and the yen-to-dollar exchange rate: A simultaneous equations approach using realized volatility," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 490-505, July.
    2. Giuseppe Croce & Emanuela Ghignoni, 2011. "Overeducation and spatial flexibility in Italian local labour markets," Working Papers in Public Economics 145, Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Roma.
    3. Darrian Collins & Clem Tisdell, 2004. "Outbound Business Travel Depends on Business Returns: Australian Evidence," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 192-207, June.
    4. Jongeneel, Roelof A. & Ge, Lan, 2005. "Explaining Growth in Dutch Agriculture: Prices, Public R&D, and Technological Change," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24573, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    6. Hany Eldemerdash & Hugh Metcalf & Sara Maioli, 2014. "Twin deficits: new evidence from a developing (oil vs. non-oil) countries’ perspective," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 825-851, November.
    7. Rao, Surekha & Ghali, Moheb & Krieg, John, 2008. "On the J-test for nonnested hypotheses and Bayesian extension," MPRA Paper 14637, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Schimmelpfennig, Axel, 1998. "The celtic tiger faces the factor price frontier: Labour market adjustment in Ireland," Kiel Working Papers 855, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Saul Lach & Mark Schankerman, 2008. "Incentives and invention in universities," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 403-433, June.
    10. Maria Iacovou, 2002. "Class Size in the Early Years: Is Smaller Really Better?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 261-290.
    11. Maarten A. Allers & Corine Hoeben, 2010. "Effects of Unit-Based Garbage Pricing: A Differences-in-Differences Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 45(3), pages 405-428, March.
    12. C. Lanier Benkard, 2000. "Learning and Forgetting: The Dynamics of Aircraft Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    13. Bergman, Mats A. & Johansson, Per & Bergman, M.A., 2002. "Large investments in the pulp and paper industry: a count data regression analysis," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 29-52.
    14. Hongbin Li & Mark Rosenzweig & Junsen Zhang, 2010. "Altruism, Favoritism, and Guilt in the Allocation of Family Resources: Sophie's Choice in Mao's Mass Send-Down Movement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(1), pages 1-38, February.
    15. Nguyen, Bach & Tran, Hai-Anh & Stephan, Ute & Van, Ha Nguyen & Anh, Pham Thi Hoang, 2024. "“I can't get it out of my mind” - Why, how, and when crisis rumination leads entrepreneurs to act and pivot during crises," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4).
    16. Alfò, Marco & Carbonari, Lorenzo & Trovato, Giovanni, 2023. "On the effects of taxation on growth: an empirical assessment," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(5), pages 1289-1318, July.
    17. Ongo Nkoa, Bruno Emmanuel & Song, Jacques Simon, 2020. "Does institutional quality affect financial inclusion in Africa? A panel data analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(4).
    18. de Lima, Pedro J. F., 1997. "On the robustness of nonlinearity tests to moment condition failure," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1-2), pages 251-280.
    19. Kapteyn, Arie & Kleinjans, Kristin J. & van Soest, Arthur, 2009. "Intertemporal consumption with directly measured welfare functions and subjective expectations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 425-437, October.
    20. Rigobon, Roberto & Karolyi, Andrew, 2001. "Comments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123126, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:31:y:1999:i:7:p:779-794. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.