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Breakdown of Benford’s law for birth data

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  • Ausloos, M.
  • Herteliu, C.
  • Ileanu, B.

Abstract

Long birth time series for Romania are investigated from Benford’s law point of view, distinguishing between families with a religious (Orthodox and Non-Orthodox) affiliation. The data extend from Jan. 01, 1905 till Dec. 31, 2001, i.e. over 97 years or 35 429 days. The results point to a drastic breakdown of Benford’s law. Some interpretation is proposed, based on the statistical aspects due to population sizes, rather than on human thought constraints when the law breakdown is usually expected. Benford’s law breakdown clearly points to natural causes.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:419:y:2015:i:c:p:736-745
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2014.10.041
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Clippe, Paulette & Ausloos, Marcel, 2012. "Benford’s law and Theil transform of financial data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(24), pages 6556-6567.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. M. Jayasree & C. S. Pavana Jyothi & P. Ramya, 2018. "Benford’s Law and Stock Market—The Implications for Investors: The Evidence from India Nifty Fifty," Jindal Journal of Business Research, , vol. 7(2), pages 103-121, December.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
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    5. 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.
    6. Ausloos, Marcel & Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2016. "On the “usual” misunderstandings between econophysics and finance: Some clarifications on modelling approaches and efficient market hypothesis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 7-14.
    7. Jing Shi & Marcel Ausloos & Tingting Zhu, 2022. "If global or local investor sentiments are prone to developing an impact on stock returns, is there an industry effect?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 1309-1320, January.
    8. Roy Cerqueti & Claudio Lupi, 2021. "Some New Tests of Conformity with Benford’s Law," Stats, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-17, September.
    9. 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).
    10. Cerqueti, Roy & Maggi, Mario, 2021. "Data validity and statistical conformity with Benford’s Law," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    11. 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).
    12. 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.
    13. Roeland de Kok & Giulia Rotundo, 2022. "Benford Networks," Stats, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-14, September.
    14. Azevedo, Caio da Silva & Gonçalves, Rodrigo Franco & Gava, Vagner Luiz & Spinola, Mauro de Mesquita, 2021. "A Benford’s Law based methodology for fraud detection in social welfare programs: Bolsa Familia analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 567(C).
    15. 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.
    16. Preda, Vasile & Dedu, Silvia & Gheorghe, Carmen, 2015. "New classes of Lorenz curves by maximizing Tsallis entropy under mean and Gini equality and inequality constraints," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 436(C), pages 925-932.
    17. 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.

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