ABSTRACT Post-1994, the South African government has favoured cooperatives over other types of corporate entities in its rural development programmes. An improved understanding of the key drivers underpinning the performance of cooperatives is important for informing government programmes and policies that target cooperatives. This study examined the financial efficiency, and its determinants, of 387 agricultural cooperatives in South Africa, using the Simar–Wilson methodology. Bias-corrected Data Envelopment Analysis estimates for financial efficiency were obtained in the first stage. The results indicated that many agricultural cooperatives are relatively inefficient, compared to the three best-performing cooperatives on the efficient boundary. In the second stage, a double bootstrap truncated regression model was used to obtain bias-corrected scores that excluded the best-performing cooperatives. The statistically significant efficiency determinants identified from the analysis were the age and size of the cooperative, the gender of the principal manager of the cooperative, its governance and the training indicators. The observed relationship between governance and efficiency may be attributed to institutions that prioritise non-financial goals by being relatively more willing to compromise on governance quality. Furthermore, deviations from sound institutional control mechanisms are more likely to emerge in cooperatives that have weak institutional and organisational arrangements.

中文翻译：

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衡量南非农业合作社的财务效率：Simar-Wilson 方法的应用

摘要 1994 年后，南非政府在其农村发展计划中偏向于合作社而非其他类型的公司实体。更好地了解支撑合作社绩效的关键驱动因素对于为针对合作社的政府计划和政策提供信息非常重要。本研究使用 Simar-Wilson 方法研究了南非 387 个农业合作社的财务效率及其决定因素。在第一阶段获得了对财务效率的偏差校正数据包络分析估计。结果表明，与效率边界上表现最好的三个合作社相比，许多农业合作社的效率相对较低。在第二阶段，双引导截断回归模型用于获得排除表现最佳合作社的偏差校正分数。从分析中确定的具有统计意义的效率决定因素是合作社的年龄和规模、合作社主要经理的性别、其治理和培训指标。观察到的治理和效率之间的关系可能归因于机构通过相对更愿意在治理质量上妥协而优先考虑非财务目标。此外，体制和组织安排薄弱的合作社更有可能偏离健全的体制控制机制。从分析中确定的具有统计意义的效率决定因素是合作社的年龄和规模、合作社主要经理的性别、其治理和培训指标。观察到的治理和效率之间的关系可能归因于机构通过相对更愿意在治理质量上妥协而优先考虑非财务目标。此外，体制和组织安排薄弱的合作社更有可能偏离健全的体制控制机制。从分析中确定的具有统计意义的效率决定因素是合作社的年龄和规模、合作社主要经理的性别、其治理和培训指标。观察到的治理和效率之间的关系可能归因于机构通过相对更愿意在治理质量上妥协而优先考虑非财务目标。此外，体制和组织安排薄弱的合作社更有可能偏离健全的体制控制机制。观察到的治理和效率之间的关系可能归因于机构通过相对更愿意在治理质量上妥协而优先考虑非财务目标。此外，体制和组织安排薄弱的合作社更有可能偏离健全的体制控制机制。观察到的治理和效率之间的关系可能归因于机构通过相对更愿意在治理质量上妥协而优先考虑非财务目标。此外，体制和组织安排薄弱的合作社更有可能偏离健全的体制控制机制。