IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/alstar/v109y2025i1d10.1007_s10182-024-00505-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Classes of probability measures built on the properties of Benford’s law

Author

Listed:
  • Roy Cerqueti

    (Sapienza University of Rome
    University of Angers)

  • Mario Maggi

    (University of Pavia
    University of Pavia)

Abstract

Benford’s law is a particular discrete probability distribution that is often satisfied by the significant digits of a dataset. The nonconformity with Benford’s law suggests the possible presence of data manipulation. This paper introduces two novel generalized versions of Benford’s law that are less restrictive than the original Benford’s law—hence, leading to more probable conformity of a given dataset. Such generalizations are grounded on the existing mathematical relations between Benford’s law probability distribution elements. Moreover, one of them leads to a set of probability distributions that is a proper subset of that of the other one. We show that the considered versions of Benford’s law have a geometric representation on the three-dimensional Euclidean space. Through suitable optimization models, we show that all the probability distributions satisfying the more restrictive generalization exhibit at least acceptable conformity with Benford’s law, according to the most popular distance measures. We also present some examples to highlight the practical usefulness of the introduced devices.

Suggested Citation

  • Roy Cerqueti & Mario Maggi, 2025. "Classes of probability measures built on the properties of Benford’s law," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 109(1), pages 197-216, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:alstar:v:109:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s10182-024-00505-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10182-024-00505-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10182-024-00505-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10182-024-00505-2?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. Deckert, Joseph & Myagkov, Mikhail & Ordeshook, Peter C., 2011. "Benford's Law and the Detection of Election Fraud," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 245-268, July.
    2. repec:bla:germec:v:10:y:2009:i::p:339-351 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. De Ceuster, Marc J. K. & Dhaene, Geert & Schatteman, Tom, 1998. "On the hypothesis of psychological barriers in stock markets and Benford's Law," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 263-279, September.
    4. Alex Ely Kossovsky, 2021. "On the Mistaken Use of the Chi-Square Test in Benford’s Law," Stats, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-35, May.
    5. Karl‐Heinz Tödter, 2009. "Benford's Law as an Indicator of Fraud in Economics," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 10(3), pages 339-351, August.
    6. Barabesi, Lucio & Pratelli, Luca, 2020. "On the Generalized Benford law," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    7. Ausloos, Marcel & Cerqueti, Roy & Mir, Tariq A., 2017. "Data science for assessing possible tax income manipulation: The case of Italy," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 238-256.
    8. Riccioni, Jessica & Cerqueti, Roy, 2018. "Regular paths in financial markets: Investigating the Benford's law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 186-194.
    9. 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.
    10. Cerqueti, Roy & Maggi, Mario, 2021. "Data validity and statistical conformity with Benford’s Law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Ausloos, M. & Herteliu, C. & Ileanu, B., 2015. "Breakdown of Benford’s law for birth data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 419(C), pages 736-745.
    13. Mir, T.A., 2014. "The Benford law behavior of the religious activity data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 408(C), pages 1-9.
    14. Tariq Ahmad Mir & Marcel Ausloos & Roy Cerqueti, 2014. "Benford's law predicted digit distribution of aggregated income taxes: the surprising conformity of Italian cities and regions," Papers 1410.2890, arXiv.org.
    15. Ausloos, Marcel & Cerqueti, Roy & Lupi, Claudio, 2017. "Long-range properties and data validity for hydrogeological time series: The case of the Paglia river," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 470(C), pages 39-50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Cerqueti, Roy & Maggi, Mario, 2021. "Data validity and statistical conformity with Benford’s Law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Roy Cerqueti & Claudio Lupi, 2021. "Some New Tests of Conformity with Benford’s Law," Stats, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-17, September.
    3. Arezzo, Maria Felice & Cerqueti, Roy, 2023. "A Benford’s Law view of inspections’ reasonability," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 632(P1).
    4. Roy Cerqueti & Mario Maggi & Jessica Riccioni, 2024. "Statistical methods for decision support systems in finance: how Benford’s law predicts financial risk," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 342(3), pages 1445-1469, November.
    5. Riccioni, Jessica & Cerqueti, Roy, 2018. "Regular paths in financial markets: Investigating the Benford's law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 186-194.
    6. Ausloos, Marcel & Ficcadenti, Valerio & Dhesi, Gurjeet & Shakeel, Muhammad, 2021. "Benford’s laws tests on S&P500 daily closing values and the corresponding daily log-returns both point to huge non-conformity," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 574(C).
    7. Herteliu, Claudiu & Jianu, Ionel & Dragan, Irina Maria & Apostu, Simona & Luchian, Iuliana, 2021. "Testing Benford’s Laws (non)conformity within disclosed companies’ financial statements among hospitality industry in Romania," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 582(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Ausloos, Marcel & Cerqueti, Roy & Mir, Tariq A., 2017. "Data science for assessing possible tax income manipulation: The case of Italy," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 238-256.
    10. Bogdan Vasile Ileanu & Marcel Ausloos & Claudiu Herteliu & Marian Pompiliu Cristescu, 2019. "Intriguing behavior when testing the impact of quotation marks usage in Google search results," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(5), pages 2507-2519, September.
    11. Ausloos, Marcel & Castellano, Rosella & Cerqueti, Roy, 2016. "Regularities and discrepancies of credit default swaps: a data science approach through Benford's law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 8-17.
    12. Shi, Jing & Ausloos, Marcel & Zhu, Tingting, 2018. "Benford’s law first significant digit and distribution distances for testing the reliability of financial reports in developing countries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 492(C), pages 878-888.
    13. Bormashenko, Ed. & Shulzinger, E. & Whyman, G. & Bormashenko, Ye., 2016. "Benford’s law, its applicability and breakdown in the IR spectra of polymers," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 444(C), pages 524-529.
    14. Whyman, G. & Ohtori, N. & Shulzinger, E. & Bormashenko, Ed., 2016. "Revisiting the Benford law: When the Benford-like distribution of leading digits in sets of numerical data is expectable?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 461(C), pages 595-601.
    15. Tariq Ahmad Mir & Marcel Ausloos & Roy Cerqueti, 2014. "Benford's law predicted digit distribution of aggregated income taxes: the surprising conformity of Italian cities and regions," Papers 1410.2890, arXiv.org.
    16. Lee, Kang-Bok & Han, Sumin & Jeong, Yeasung, 2020. "COVID-19, flattening the curve, and Benford’s law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 559(C).
    17. Ausloos, Marcel & Cerqueti, Roy & Bartolacci, Francesca & Castellano, Nicola G., 2018. "SME investment best strategies. Outliers for assessing how to optimize performance," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 509(C), pages 754-765.
    18. 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.
    19. Roeland de Kok & Giulia Rotundo, 2022. "Benford Networks," Stats, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-14, September.
    20. Tariq Ahmad Mir, 2012. "The leading digit distribution of the worldwide Illicit Financial Flows," Papers 1201.3432, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2012.

    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:spr:alstar:v:109:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s10182-024-00505-2. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.