This study develops machine learning models to predict audit quality by using a wide range of data describing detailed characteristics of accounting firms, individual audit partners, and public companies in China. It constructs the surprise score, a new measure of audit quality, calculated as...

Combining the company’s risk of financial fraud predicted by the machine learning method and unique Chinese data of board voting, this study investigates whether independent directors can identify the company’s risk of financial fraud. We find that independent directors are more likely to...