IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v196y2020ics0165176520303475.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Benford’s Law and COVID-19 reporting

Author

Listed:
  • Koch, Christoffer
  • Okamura, Ken

Abstract

Trust in the reported data of contagious diseases in real time is important for policy makers. Media and politicians have cast doubt on Chinese reported data on COVID-19 cases. We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy. We identify a more likely candidate for problems in the policy making process: Poor multilateral data sharing on testing and sampling.

Suggested Citation

  • Koch, Christoffer & Okamura, Ken, 2020. "Benford’s Law and COVID-19 reporting," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:196:y:2020:i:c:s0165176520303475
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109573
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520303475
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109573?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernhard Rauch & Max Göttsche & Gernot Brähler & Stefan Engel, 2011. "Fact and Fiction in EU‐Governmental Economic Data," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(3), pages 243-255, August.
    2. Mr. Jesus R Gonzalez-Garcia & Mr. Gonzalo C Pastor Campos, 2009. "Benford’s Law and Macroeconomic Data Quality," IMF Working Papers 2009/010, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Andreas Diekmann, 2007. "Not the First Digit! Using Benford's Law to Detect Fraudulent Scientif ic Data," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 321-329.
    4. Fernando Alvarez & David Argente, 2020. "A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lockdown," Working Papers 2020-34, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    5. Yun Qiu & Xi Chen & Wei Shi, 2020. "Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1127-1172, October.
    6. Martin S Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo & Mathias Trabandt, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Epidemics [Economic activity and the spread of viral diseases: Evidence from high frequency data]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5149-5187.
    7. Nye John & Moul Charles, 2007. "The Political Economy of Numbers: On the Application of Benford's Law to International Macroeconomic Statistics," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-14, July.
    8. Tomasz Kamil Michalski & Guillaume Stoltz, 2010. "Do countries falsify economic data strategically? Some evidence that they do," Post-Print hal-00543490, HAL.
    9. Fang, Hanming & Wang, Long & Yang, Yang, 2020. "Human mobility restrictions and the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    10. Dhaval Dave & Andrew I. Friedson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Joseph J. Sabia, 2021. "When Do Shelter‐In‐Place Orders Fight Covid‐19 Best? Policy Heterogeneity Across States And Adoption Time," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 29-52, January.
    11. Andrew Atkeson, 2020. "What Will be the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in the US? Rough Estimates of Disease Scenarios," Staff Report 595, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    12. Callum Jones & Thomas Philippon & Venky Venkateswaran, 2021. "Optimal Mitigation Policies in a Pandemic: Social Distancing and Working from Home [A simple planning problem for covid-19 lockdown]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5188-5223.
    13. Tomasz Michalski & Gilles Stoltz, 2013. "Do Countries Falsify Economic Data Strategically? Some Evidence That They Might," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 591-616, May.
    14. Lyu, Changjiang & Wang, Kemin & Zhang, Frank & Zhang, Xin, 2018. "GDP management to meet or beat growth targets," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 318-338.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eutsler, Jared & Kathleen Harris, M. & Tyler Williams, L. & Cornejo, Omar E., 2023. "Accounting for partisanship and politicization: Employing Benford's Law to examine misreporting of COVID-19 infection cases and deaths in the United States," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    2. Adam, Antonis & Tsarsitalidou, Sofia, 2022. "Data misreporting during the COVID19 crisis: The role of political institutions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Holz, Carsten A., 2014. "The quality of China's GDP statistics," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 309-338.
    2. Garriga, Carlos & Manuelli, Rody & Sanghi, Siddhartha, 2022. "Optimal management of an epidemic: Lockdown, vaccine and value of life," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    3. Vadim S. Balashov & Yuxing Yan & Xiaodi Zhu, 2020. "Who Manipulates Data During Pandemics? Evidence from Newcomb-Benford Law," Papers 2007.14841, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2021.
    4. Burzyński, Michał & Machado, Joël & Aalto, Atte & Beine, Michel & Goncalves, Jorge & Haas, Tom & Kemp, Françoise & Magni, Stefano & Mombaerts, Laurent & Picard, Pierre & Proverbio, Daniele & Skupin, A, 2021. "COVID-19 crisis management in Luxembourg: Insights from an epidemionomic approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. T. Mir, 2016. "The leading digit distribution of the worldwide illicit financial flows," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 271-281, January.
    6. repec:hal:journl:hal-03389177 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ichino, Andrea & Favero, Carlo A. & Rustichini, Aldo, 2020. "Restarting the economy while saving lives under Covid-19," CEPR Discussion Papers 14664, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Joshua Bernstein & Alexander W. Richter & Nathaniel A. Throckmorton, 2020. "COVID-19: A View from the Labor Market," Working Papers 2010, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    9. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2021. "Welfare costs of COVID‐19: Evidence from US counties," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 826-848, September.
    10. Giorgio Fabbri & Salvatore Federico & Davide Fiaschi & Fausto Gozzi, 2024. "Mobility decisions, economic dynamics and epidemic," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 77(1), pages 495-531, February.
    11. Lin William Cong & Ke Tang & Bing Wang & Jingyuan Wang, 2021. "An AI-assisted Economic Model of Endogenous Mobility and Infectious Diseases: The Case of COVID-19 in the United States," Papers 2109.10009, arXiv.org.
    12. Dirk Krueger & Harald Uhlig & Taojun Xie, 2020. "Macroeconomic Dynamics and Reallocation in an Epidemic," PIER Working Paper Archive 20-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. Timo Boppart & Karl Harmenberg & John Hassler & Per Krusell & Jonna Olsson, 2020. "Integrated Epi-Econ Assessment," NBER Working Papers 28282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Farboodi, Maryam & Jarosch, Gregor & Shimer, Robert, 2021. "Internal and external effects of social distancing in a pandemic," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    15. Cem Çakmaklı & Selva Demiralp & Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Sevcan Yesiltas & Muhammed A. Yildirim, 2020. "COVID-19 and Emerging Markets: A SIR Model, Demand Shocks and Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 27191, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Jiansuo Pei & Gaaitzen de Vries & Meng Zhang, 2022. "International trade and Covid‐19: City‐level evidence from China's lockdown policy," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 670-695, June.
    17. Victor Aguirregabiria & Jiaying Gu & Yao Luo & Pedro Mira, 2020. "A Dynamic Structural Model of Virus Diffusion and Network Production: A First Report," Working Papers tecipa-665, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    18. Guillaume Chapelle, 2020. "The medium-term impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions. The case of the 1918 influenza in US cities," Working Papers hal-03389177, HAL.
    19. Fabio Milani, 2021. "COVID-19 outbreak, social response, and early economic effects: a global VAR analysis of cross-country interdependencies," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 223-252, January.
    20. Francesco Busato & Bruno Chiarini & Gianluigi Cisco & Maria Ferrara & Elisabetta Marzano, 2020. "Lockdown Policies: A Macrodynamic Perspective for Covid-19," CESifo Working Paper Series 8465, CESifo.
    21. Vandenbroucke Guillaume, 2022. "The Mechanics of Individually- and Socially-Optimal Decisions during an Epidemic," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 131-158, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corona COVID-19; Statistical reporting; Government accountability; World Health Organization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:196:y:2020:i:c:s0165176520303475. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.