Financial incentives to doctors and the high rates of caesarean births

Doctors increasingly resort to caesarean operations (C-sections) to deliver babies. C-section rates vary widely from place to place. Hanifa Pilvar and Kowsar Yousefi study a health care reform undertaken in Iran to control the rising use of C-sections. They find that financial incentives play a key role in physicians’ choice between a caesarean and a vaginal delivery.