About

Bernard Black is the Nicholas D. Chabraja Professor at Northwestern University, with positions in the Pritzker School of Law, the Kellogg School of Management, Department of Finance, and the Institute for Policy Research. His research areas include health policy and medical malpractice, empirical methods for causal inference, law and finance, and international corporate governance. He is the author of the recent book 'Medical Malpractice Litigation: How It Works; Why Tort Reform Hasn't Helped' (Cato Institute 2021, with co-authors). Black is the founding Chairman of the annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (2006-2016), a founding editor of the Journal of Law, Finance and Accounting, and has organized an annual summer workshop at Northwestern since 2010. He is recognized as one of the leading empirical legal scholars in the U.S., with over 150 published articles and more than 31,000 citations on Google Scholar.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Demography
• Virology
• Statistics
• Econometrics
• Sociology
• Environmental health
• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Emergency medicine
• Economics
• Gerontology
• Medical emergency
• Surgery
• Pediatrics
• Biology
• Accounting

Selected publications

• Some Puzzles in Medical Malpractice Insurance Pricing

  Journal of law & empirical analysis. · 2026-03-25

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We use staggered difference-in-differences and panel data methods to study the factors that predict medical malpractice (“med mal”) insurance premia, using national data on three specialties (internal medicine, general surgery, ob-gyn) from Medical Liability Monitor over 1992 to 2017. A difference-in-differences analysis of states that adopted caps during our sample period provides evidence supporting a causal link between cap adoption and higher premia, lower direct costs (payouts plus defense costs), and thus much higher profitability (proxied by the premium-to-direct-cost ratio). The savings to insurers from lower direct costs, following damage cap adoption, are at most partially reflected in premia even over long time periods. Instead, insurers in new-cap states have been able to charge apparently supra-competitive prices for a sustained period. In the panel data analysis, we estimate long run elasticities of premia to direct cost, allowing for lags of up to four years, of only around +0.40, when one might expect elasticities near one. Also, the premium-to-cost ratio, which one might expect in competitive markets to be fairly constant over time, varies widely both across states at a given time and within states across time.

  PublisherDOI

• Medical Liability Insurance Premia Update: 1990-2025 Dataset, with Literature Review, and Summary Information

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Analysis of Georgia Medical Malpractice Environment Part 2: Comments on Georgia Medical Association Letter 

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Appendix for The Impact of Health Insurance on Healthcare Utilization and Health: Evidence from Medicaid Expansion in Indiana

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Area-Level SES Indices Have Predictive Power at Multiple Geographic Levels

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Analysis of Georgia Medical Malpractice Environment

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• <div> Online Appendix for: <span>Some Puzzles in Medical Malpractice Insurance Pricing</span></div>

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Comparing Predictive Power of Area-Level Socioeconomic Status Indices Across Health Outcomes and Geographic Levels

  Medical Care · 2025-12-23 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Many researchers want to control for both individual-level demographic/health variables and area-level socioeconomic status (area-SES) when studying health outcomes. However, comparative assessments of area-SES indices across geographic levels and a range of health outcomes are scarce. OBJECTIVES: Compare predictive power for 3 commonly used area-SES indices: the Graham Social Deprivation Index (SDI), the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), and the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), for a variety of health outcomes, at different geographic levels (county, 5-digit zip-code, census tract, and census block group). Also compare these indices to the simpler Townsend Deprivation Index (TDI) and population percent in poverty (area-Poverty). RESEARCH DESIGN: Principal research methods are logistic and ordinary least squares regression. SUBJECTS: Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, COVID-19 decedents, and drug overdose decedents. MEASURES: SDI, SVI, ADI, TDI, area-Poverty. HEALTH OUTCOMES STUDIED: All-cause mortality, diabetes incidence and prevalence, hypertension, renal disease, and 30-day hospital readmission for Medicare beneficiaries; COVID-19 mortality; overdose mortality; Medicare fee-for-service spending. RESULTS: All measures predict the health outcomes, controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, and comorbidities, at zip code, tract, and block-group levels. Predictive power is comparable for SDI, SVI, and a standardized version of ADI, and generally superior to TDI, area-Poverty, and non-standardized ADI. Predictive power is highest at tract level, similar at block-group; reasonably strong at zip code, but weaker at county level. CONCLUSIONS: Across a range of health outcomes, we find similar predictive power for SDI, SVI, and standardized ADI, ideally measured at census tract level. SDI has the value of being more parsimonious, with similar performance. Non-standardized ADI cannot be recommended.

  PublisherDOI

• Internet Appendix to:  The Road to False Positives:  Sample Selection and Specification Choice in Randomized and Natural Experiments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Road to False Positives: Sample Selection and Specification Choice in Randomized and Natural Experiments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Effect of ACA Medicaid Expansion on Diabetes: Diagnosis, Treatment, Patient Compliance, and Health Outcomes

  NIH · $2.2M · 2015–2020

• Joint Effect of Malpractice Risk and Financial Incentives on Cardiac Testing

  NIH · $2.9M · 2013–2020

• Clinical and Translational Science Award

  NIH · $47.5M · 2025–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Ali Moghtaderi

  Sinai Hospital

  153 shared

• Jesse M. Pines

  CARE USA

  123 shared

• Mark S. Zocchi

  VA New England Healthcare System

  117 shared

• Dhimitri A. Nikolla

  Allegheny Health Network

  104 shared

• Jonathan J. Oskvarek

  Summa Health System

  104 shared

• Nishad Rahman

  Summa Health System

  102 shared

• David A. Hyman

  Georgetown University

  102 shared

• Andrew Leubitz

  Milken Institute

  101 shared

Awards & honors

• Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (2006-2016)