Faculty Forum, Issue No. 21, Spring 2015, The University of South Carolina Salkehatchie Campus.
ISSN/ISBN: Not available at this time. DOI: Not available at this time.
Abstract: This paper analyzes data regarding toxic chemicals released into surface bodies of water based on Benford’s law, an empirical law that describes the distribution of leading digits in a collection of numbers met in naturally occurring phenomena. The law is based on observations that certain digits appear more frequently than others in data sets. After discussing the background of the law and the development of its use in natural sciences, this paper analyzes how Benford’s law can be applied to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data. The theory advanced is that any type of deviation affecting TRI data, including fraud and data manipulation, can be detected by investigating the first-digit distributions of the TRI data. This premise is then supported by corroborative statistical tests that achieve encouraging results.
Bibtex:
@techReport{,
AUTHOR = {Jeff Irwin},
TITLE = {The Effective Use of Benford’s Law to Assist in Detecting Fraud in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Data},
INSTITUTION = {The University of South Carolina Salkehatchie Campus},
YEAR = {2015},
NUMBER = {Faculty Forum No. 21},
URL = {https://www.sc.edu/about/system_and_campuses/salkehatchie/internal/faculty_and_staff/faculty-forum/ff21.pdf},
}
Reference Type: Technical Report
Subject Area(s): Environmental Sciences, Natural Sciences