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Stigler's approach to recovering the distribution of first significant digits in natural data sets

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  • Lee, Joanne
  • Cho, Wendy K.
  • Judge, George G.

Abstract

In 1881, Newcomb conjectured that the first significant digits (FSDs) of numbers in statistical tables would follow a logarithmic distribution with the digit “1” occurring most often. However, because Newcomb’s proposal was not presented with a theoretical basis, it was not given much attention. Fifty-seven years later, Benford argued for the same principle and showed it was relevant to a large range of data sets, and the logarithmic FSD distribution became known as “Benford’s Law.” In the mid-1940s, Stigler claimed Benford’s Law contained a theoretical inconsistency and supplied an alternative derivation for the distribution of FSDs. In this paper, we examine the theoretical basis of the Stigler distribution and extend his reasoning by incorporating FSD first moment information and information-theoretic methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Joanne & Cho, Wendy K. & Judge, George G., 2009. "Stigler's approach to recovering the distribution of first significant digits in natural data sets," CUDARE Working Papers 47000, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ucbecw:47000
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.47000
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Pietronero, L. & Tosatti, E. & Tosatti, V. & Vespignani, A., 2001. "Explaining the uneven distribution of numbers in nature: the laws of Benford and Zipf," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 293(1), pages 297-304.
    2. Grendar, Marian & Judge, George & Schechter, Laura, 2007. "An empirical non-parametric likelihood family of data-based Benford-like distributions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 380(C), pages 429-438.
    3. David Giles, 2007. "Benford's law and naturally occurring prices in certain ebaY auctions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 157-161.
    4. Golan, Amos & Judge, George G. & Miller, Douglas, 1996. "Maximum Entropy Econometrics," Staff General Research Papers Archive 1488, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Rodriguez R.J., 2004. "First Significant Digit Patterns From Mixtures of Uniform Distributions," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 58, pages 64-71, February.
    6. Tam Cho, Wendy K. & Gaines, Brian J., 2007. "Breaking the (Benford) Law: Statistical Fraud Detection in Campaign Finance," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 61, pages 218-223, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Henry-Osorio, Miguel & Mittelhammer, Ronald C., 2012. "An Information-Theoretic Approach to Modeling Binary Choices: Estimating Willingness to Pay for Recreation Site Attributes," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 123432, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Hürlimann, Werner, 2015. "On the uniform random upper bound family of first significant digit distributions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 349-358.
    3. Henry, Miguel & Mittelhammer, Ron & Loomis, John, 2018. "An Information-Theoretic Approach to Estimating Willingness To Pay for River Recreation Site Attributes," MPRA Paper 89842, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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