Table 3.

Effect of Malpractice Liability Exposure on Cesarean and Vaginal Births after Cesarean (VBAC): the 1990s vs. the 2000s

Specification	Primary Cesarean			VBAC
	All	OB Only	Labor/Delivery Only	All	OB Only	Labor/Delivery Only
Panel A: First Report
First report 90s	−0.0039	−0.0042	−0.0029	−0.0425**	−0.0466**	−0.0608***
	(0.0066)	(0.0082)	(0.0093)	(0.0172)	(0.0206)	(0.0233)
First report 00s	−0.0059	−0.0025	−0.0032	−0.0106*	−0.0116	−0.0018
	(0.0045)	(0.0056)	(0.0069)	(0.0064)	(0.0073)	(0.0084)
Panel B: First Severe Report
First severe report 90s	−0.0008	−0.0019	−0.0032	−0.0446**	−0.0455**	−0.0643**
	(0.0076)	(0.0088)	(0.0101)	(0.0211)	(0.0228)	(0.0253)
First severe report 00s	−0.0063	0.0001	0.0000	−0.0079	−0.0068	0.0012
	(0.0053)	(0.0064)	(0.0079)	(0.0071)	(0.0079)	(0.0092)
Panel C: First Lawsuit
First lawsuit 90s	0.0042	0.0085	0.0069	−0.0301	−0.0266	−0.0483*
	(0.0069)	(0.0083)	(0.0101)	(0.0214)	(0.0237)	(0.0285)
First lawsuit 00s	−0.0052	−0.0017	−0.0043	−0.0176**	−0.0219***	−0.0111
	(0.0048)	(0.0058)	(0.0069)	(0.0072)	(0.0084)	(0.0097)
N (patient obs.)		2,316,504			403,378
No. doctors		2,338			2,277
Mean outcome		0.228			0.135

Notes: Sample is all physicians delivering babies between 1994 and 2010, excluding those who experienced a malpractice claim prior to 1994, the first year of our linked hospital discharge data. Primary Cesarean is conditional on no prior Cesarean, while VBAC is conditional on a prior Cesarean. These regressions control for the following covariates: premature birth, multiple birth, previous Cesarean, breech birth, African American, young mom (<20), old mom (>35), Medicaid, number of years doctor has been practicing, doctor, and quarter‐year fixed effects. Standard errors are clustered at the doctor level. Observations are included if the infant was delivered by a physician who delivered at least five babies per quarter.

*p < .10, **p < .05, ***p < .01.