Is the External Audit Report Useful for Bankruptcy Prediction? Evidence Using Artificial Intelligence

Despite the number of studies on bankruptcy prediction using financial ratios, very little is known about how external audit information can contribute to anticipating financial distress. A handful of papers have shown that a combination of ratios and audit data is significant for predictive purpose...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Muñoz Izquierdo, Nora, Camacho Miñano, Juana María Del Mar, Segovia Vargas, María Jesús, Pascual Ezama, David
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/12306
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12306
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:G33
M40
M41
M42
C14
Bankruptcy prediction
Audit report
Artificial intelligence
PART algorithm
Contabilidad (Economía)
Econometría (Economía)
Finanzas
5303 Contabilidad Económica
5302 Econometría
Descripción
Sumario:Despite the number of studies on bankruptcy prediction using financial ratios, very little is known about how external audit information can contribute to anticipating financial distress. A handful of papers have shown that a combination of ratios and audit data is significant for predictive purposes, but only one recent paper provided a predictive accuracy of 80% solely by using the disclosures contained in audit reports. This study was complemented by simplifying the analysis of audit reports for prediction purposes and the same predictive accuracy was achieved. By applying three artificial intelligence techniques (PART algorithm, random forest, and support vector machine), the predictive ability of more easily extracted information from the report was examined and a practical implication suggested for each user. Simply by (1) finding the audit opinion, (2) identifying if a matter section exists, and (3) the number of comments disclosed, any user may predict a bankruptcy situation with the same accuracy as if they had scrutinized the whole report. In addition, an extended literature review is included, on previous studies on the interaction between bankruptcy prediction and the external audit information.