Defence and Peace Economics 25(2), pp. 97-111.
ISSN/ISBN: Not available at this time. DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2013.763438
Abstract: The UN asks governments to report key figures of their annual military budgets with the aim of creating trust among member states. This goal can only be achieved if the data reported is accurate. However, although there are many reasons for governments to falsify data, the UN does not check for manipulation. In this paper, we apply Benford’s law to the military expenditure data of 27 states taken from the UN register. Our analysis of the first digits shows that the states with the greatest deviations from the expected Benford distribution and therefore the lowest data quality are the USA and the UK.
Bibtex:
@article{,
author = {Bernhard Rauch and Max G{\"o}ttsche and Stephan Langenegger},
title = {Detecting Problems in Military Expenditure Data Using Digital Analysis},
journal = {Defence and Peace Economics},
volume = {25},
number = {2},
pages = {97-111},
year = {2014},
publisher = {Routledge},
doi = {10.1080/10242694.2013.763438},
URL = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10242694.2013.763438?scroll=top&needAccess=true},
}
Reference Type: Journal Article
Subject Area(s): Accounting