In this study, we obtain: (i) input

In this study, we obtain: (i) input and output data, and IC-related data from the Yearbook of China's Insurance published by the Editorial Department of China's Insurance Yearbook [57]; and (ii) public information published on the websites of life insurance companies, including annual income statements, balance sheets, industry segments, and supplemental data. We use balanced panel data, covering the period 2006–2010, of 34 Chinese life insurance companies (170 firm-year observations). We deflate all variables to 2006, using the China's Consumer Price Index (CPI) (2006=101.5), which we obtain from the 2007 China Statistical Yearbook.