In their role as monitors and advisors, boards are expected to address agency conflicts associated with the separation of ownership from control in large corporations. The ability to effectively perform these functions and enhance corporate outcomes largely depends on their influence in decision-making. This paper aims to examine the effect of corporate governance attributes, in the form of board characteristics, on technical efficiency in the South African life insurance industry.,Using the two-stage data envelopment analysis technique, bootstrapped efficiency scores are estimated for 73 insurers from 2007 to 2014 in Stage 1. The truncated bootstrapping procedure of Simar and Wilson (2007) and the tobit estimation techniques are used to examine the effect of corporate governance characteristics and other insurer level attributes on technical efficiency scores in Stage 2 analysis.,The findings suggest that life insurers operate with high levels of inefficiency within a highly independent governance structure. The results from Stage 2 analysis identifies audit committee size and independence to improve efficiency while board independence is found to be detrimental to efficiency.,The findings provide a useful reference point for insurance regulators in developing economies in the formulation of an effective governance mechanism for the efficient operation of the insurance industry.,As far as the authors are concerned, the analysis contained in this paper presents the first empirical assessment of the corporate governance structure and its effects on corporate outcomes in an African insurance market.

中文翻译：

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南非的董事会特征和人寿保险效率

董事会有望担任监督和顾问的角色，以解决与大公司所有权与控制权分离相关的代理冲突。有效执行这些功能并增强公司业绩的能力在很大程度上取决于其在决策中的影响力。本文旨在以董事会特征的形式研究公司治理属性对南非人寿保险业技术效率的影响。利用两阶段数据包络分析技术，估算了73家保险公司的自举效率得分第一阶段的2007年至2014年。Simar和Wilson（2007）的截短自举程序和tobit估算技术被用于检验公司治理特征和其他保险公司水平属性在第二阶段分析中对技术效率得分的影响。研究结果表明，寿险公司的经营水平很高。高度独立的治理结构中的低效率水平。第二阶段分析的结果确定了审计委员会的规模和独立性，以提高效率，而董事会独立性却被认为不利于效率。这些发现为发展中经济体的保险监管机构制定有效的治理机制提供了有用的参考点。保险业的有效运作。就作者而言，