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Carreira, P and da Silva, CG (2016)

Assessing the omission of records from a data set using Benford’s law

Journal of Financial Crime 23(4), pp. 798-805.

ISSN/ISBN: Not available at this time. DOI: 10.1108/JFC-10-2015-0060



Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to estimate the number of records that were omitted from a data set, and to assess its effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach – The procedure to estimate the number of records that were omitted from a data set is based on Benford’s law. Empirical experiments are performed to illustrate the application of the procedure. In detail, two simulated Benford-conforming data sets are distorted and the procedure is then used to recover the original patterns of the data sets. Findings – The effectiveness of the procedure seems to increase with the degree of conformity of the original data set with Benford’s law. Practical implications – This work can be useful in auditing and economic crime detection, namely in identifying tax evasion. Originality/value – This work is the rst to propose Benford’s law as a tool to detect data evasion.


Bibtex:
@article{, author = {Carreira, Pedro and Gomes da Silva, Carlos}, title = {Assessing the omission of records from a data set using Benford’s law}, year = {2016}, journal = {Journal of Financial Crime}, volume = {23}, number = {4}, pages = {798--805 doi = {10.1108/JFC-10-2015-0060}, } }


Reference Type: Journal Article

Subject Area(s): Accounting