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Benford's law first significant digit and distribution distances for testing the reliability of financial reports in developing countries

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  • Jing Shi
  • Marcel Ausloos
  • Tingting Zhu

Abstract

We discuss a common suspicion about reported financial data, in 10 industrial sectors of the 6 so called "main developing countries" over the time interval [2000-2014]. These data are examined through Benford's law first significant digit and through distribution distances tests. It is shown that several visually anomalous data have to be a priori removed. Thereafter, the distributions much better follow the first digit significant law, indicating the usefulness of a Benford's law test from the research starting line. The same holds true for distance tests. A few outliers are pointed out.

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  • Jing Shi & Marcel Ausloos & Tingting Zhu, 2017. "Benford's law first significant digit and distribution distances for testing the reliability of financial reports in developing countries," Papers 1712.00131, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1712.00131
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    1. Marco Corazza & Florence Legros & Cira Perna & Marilena Sibillo, 2017. "Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance," Post-Print hal-01776135, HAL.
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    6. 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.
    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.
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    Cited by:

    1. Roy Cerqueti & Claudio Lupi, 2021. "Some New Tests of Conformity with Benford’s Law," Stats, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Natasa Omerzu & Iztok Kolar, 2019. "Do the Financial Statements of Listed Companies on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange Pass the Benford’s Law Test?," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(1), pages 54-64, January.
    3. Marcel Ausloos, 2020. "Valuation Models Applied to Value-Based Management—Application to the Case of UK Companies with Problems," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-17, December.
    4. 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).
    5. 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.
    6. 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).
    7. 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).
    8. Cerqueti, Roy & Maggi, Mario, 2021. "Data validity and statistical conformity with Benford’s Law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Willis A. Jones, 2020. "A Benford Analysis of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Finance Data," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(3), pages 234-255, April.
    10. Cunjak Mataković Ivana, 2019. "The empirical analysis of financial reports of companies in Croatia: Benford distribution curve as a benchmark for first digits," Croatian Review of Economic, Business and Social Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 5(2), pages 90-100, December.
    11. Etienne Harb & Nohade Nasrallah & Rim El Khoury & Khaled Hussainey, 2022. "Applying Benford’s Law to detect accounting data manipulation in the pre-and post-financial engineering periods: Evidence from Lebanon," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2022-10, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.

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