Benford’s law and first letter of words

Yan, Xiao-Yong; Yang, Seong-Gyu; Kim, Beom Jun; Minnhagen, Petter

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2018.08.133

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The results of our research indicate that Benford's Law (BL) can be applied for detecting data anomalies compared to the original unaffected dataset. Similar to previous studies [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], our research also confirms that the more data is manipulated, the more accurate the results become. Therefore, using BL for minor data changes is not recommended.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Benford’s Law in Electric Distribution Network

Petráš,

Pavlík,

Zbojovský

et al. 2023

Mathematics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Benford’s law can be used as a method to detect non-natural changes in data sets with certain properties; in our case, the dataset was collected from electricity metering devices. In this paper, we present a theoretical background behind this law. We applied Benford’s law first digit probability distribution test for electricity metering data sets acquired from smart electricity meters, i.e., the natural data of electricity consumption acquired during a specific time interval. We present the results of Benford’s law distribution for an original measured dataset with no artificial intervention and a set of results for different kinds of affected datasets created by simulated artificial intervention. Comparing these two dataset types with each other and with the theoretical probability distribution provided us the proof that with this kind of data, Benford’s law can be applied and that it can extract the dataset’s artificial manipulation markers. As presented in the results part of the article, non-affected datasets mostly have a deviation from BL theoretical probability values below 10%, rarely between 10% and 20%. On the other side, simulated affected datasets show deviations mostly above 20%, often approximately 70%, but rarely lower than 20%, and this only in the case of affecting a small part of the original dataset (10%), which represents only a small magnitude of intervention.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Benford’s Law in Electric Distribution Network

Petráš,

Pavlík,

Zbojovský

et al. 2023

Mathematics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Checking for the validity of BL in this dataset would be the best approach in a forensic analysis looking at potential manipulations of the number of cases [7] , [8] , since a distribution of first digits that deviates from the expected distribution may indicate fraud. Prior studies have shown that BL is also applicable to genome data [9] , the half-lives of unstable nuclei [3] , self-reported toxic emissions data [10] , tax auditing [11] , accounting [12] , election data [13] , [14] , stock markets and final data [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , regression coefficients [21] , inflation data [7] , World Wide Web [22] , religions [23] , [24] , [25] , birth data [26] , river data [27] , first letter words [28] , elementary particle decay rates ( [29] , astrophysical measurements [30] , and more.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19, flattening the curve, and Benford’s law

Lee

Han

Jeong

2020

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For many countries attempting to control the fast-rising number of coronavirus cases and deaths, the race is on to “flatten the curve,” since the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has taken on pandemic proportions. In the absence of significant control interventions, the curve could be steep, with the number of COVID-19 cases growing exponentially. In fact, this level of proliferation may already be happening, since the number of patients infected in Italy closely follows an exponential trend. Thus, we propose a test. When the numbers are taken from an exponential distribution, it has been demonstrated that they automatically follow Benford’s Law (BL). As a result, if the current control interventions are successful and we flatten the curve (i.e., we slow the rate below an exponential growth rate), then the number of infections or deaths will not obey BL. For this reason, BL may be useful for assessing the effects of the current control interventions and may be able to answer the question, “How flat is flat enough?” In this study, we used an epidemic growth model in the presence of interventions to describe the potential for a flattened curve, and then investigated whether the epidemic growth model followed BL for ten selected countries with a relatively high mortality rate. Among these countries, South Korea showed a particularly high degree of control intervention. Although all of the countries have aggressively fought the epidemic, our analysis shows that all countries except for Japan satisfied BL, indicating the growth rates of COVID-19 were close to an exponential trend. Based on the simulation table in this study, BL test shows that the data from Japan is incorrect.

show abstract

“…Jordan et al (2004) identify numerous studies that mobilize BL and demonstrate that this law represents a viable method for detecting manipulations of data. Moreover, there are attempts to use Benford's law in the analysis of data different than digits/numbers: Yan et al (2018) propose a first-letter law that predicts the percentages of first letter for words in novels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting earnings management using Benford’s Law: the case of Romanian listed companies

Istrate¹

2019

JAMIS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research question: This study aims to identify possible cosmetic earnings management in the case of the Romanian listed companies. Motivation: According to the literature, the managers tend to overstate the net income presented in the financial statement. For the users of these documents and for the researchers, it is important to find out if the numbers they receive are reliable. Idea: Researchers use sometimes the Benford's Law which proposes normal frequencies for the appearance of the digit form 0 to 9 in different position of numbers. By comparing these normal frequencies with those actually observed, we can detect differences that suggest possible manipulations of net income. Data: The study take into consideration more than 1,200 observations concerning Romanian listed companies during the 2001-2017 period, divided in three sub-periods. Tools: We compare the real frequencies of the digits in the net income with the BL proposed frequencies, by sub-period, firm size, auditor category, type of audit opinion, and gender of the CFO. Findings: In general, the upward rounding of earnings are confirmed in a limited number of cases, even if the amplitude of these differences is often very important. The evolution of the accounting regulation leads to a situation where we start with rather downward manipulations, to arrive on the opposite direction. The IFRS transition seems to not lead to a limitation of the differences between the real frequencies and the normal ones. By separating the observations according to the size (total assets), we found that the bigger companies manipulate more upward the net income than the smaller ones. The companies audited by a Big N auditor report less upward manipulations. Women CFOs seems to be less prudent, the net income reported by these companies

show abstract

Benford’s law and first letter of words

Cited by 9 publications

References 12 publications

Benford’s Law in Electric Distribution Network

Benford’s Law in Electric Distribution Network

COVID-19, flattening the curve, and Benford’s law

Detecting earnings management using Benford’s Law: the case of Romanian listed companies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About