Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the effect of the Corporate Governance features as measured by the Independence of the board of directors, the board size and the ownership structure (private ownership/State ownership and foreign ownership) on the banking efficiency of Saudi Arabian banks. A data set of the twelve biggest banks for the period 2000 to 2017 is used. As for banking efficiency scores, the methodology is based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It allows for Technical Efficiency, Pure Technical Efficiency and Scale Efficiency scores. The results of this study point to the significant role of The Independence (INDEP) variable supported by a positive and significant effect on efficiency in all regressions, indicating a positive relationship with the Technical Efficiency (TE) and the Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE). In the contrary, the independence of the board directors has a negative and significant effect on scale efficiency (SE). According to Board Size variable, results related to this later reveal a negative and a significant effect on technical efficiency (TE), Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE) and Scale Efficiency (SE) in all regressions. Finally, as for the ownership structure variables, results confirm that Private Ownership (OWEN-P) provides positive and significant effects on both the Technical and the Scale Efficiency. This effect seems to be turn to be negative and significant when it is correlated to the Pure Technical Efficiency. State Ownership (OWEN-S) impacts positively and significantly the Technical Efficiency, the Pure Technical Efficiency and Scale Efficiency separately. As for the Foreign Ownership (OWEN-F) variable, except for the Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE), we note a positive and significant effect on the Technical and Scale Efficiency. This study implies better Corporate Governance practices should be supported to improve the overall efficiency and its components. This includes in particular, the Board Size and the Ownership structure variables.

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