[Liability for medical malpractice: an economic approach]

In recent years, changes in the organization of healthcare institutions and the increased number of medical malpractice claims have revealed the need to study the concept of medical responsibility and the repercussion of these changes on healthcare provision. To date, discussion has focussed on legal aspects and economic implications have been largely ignored.The present article reviews studies that have performed an economic analysis the subject. Firstly, we examine studies that gradually introduce the concepts of uncertainty, risk aversion and moral hazard. Secondly, in the healthcare environment, we pay particular attention to models that include new arguments on professionals' objective duties or to bargaining models when there is asymmetric information. Finally, we consider the medical malpractice insurance market and investigate how reputation and the possibilities of exercising defensive medicine influence healthcare provision. Our analysis suggests that, due to the characteristics of the healthcare market, the models proposed by the economy of information are very useful for performing economic analyses of liability in medical malpractice. However, alternative hypotheses also need to be formulated so that these models can be adapted to the specific characteristics of different health systems.