Benford’s Law: Analysis of the trustworthiness of COVID-19 reporting in the context of different political regimes
2021 (Engelska) Självständigt arbete på grundnivå (kandidatexamen), 10 poäng / 15 hp
Studentuppsats (Examensarbete)
Abstract [en]
In order for governments and demographers to, among other things, design policies and pensionplans, as well as for insurance companies to offer policies that serve general public, having reliable mortality data plays a crucial role. The academic world works actively in developing tools (models and methods) that can, based on collected mortality data, forecast future death rates in the observed population. Obviously, to be able to rely on the predicated data one needs a reliable source of existing mortality data. In the light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, reliability of certain death-case reporting has been questioned. In this thesis, the Benford’s Law is used to evaluate how well countries with authoritarian regimes (Azerbaijan, Belarus),and with democratic regimes (Greece, Serbia, Sweden), report their COVID-19 cases to theworldwide public. Statistical tests such as the Chi-squared test, mean absolute deviation, and the distribution distance were used to obtain the results needed to form our conclusions. During our testing, we found that countries with democratic regimes do conform better to the Benford’s law than the authoritarian ones.
Ort, förlag, år, upplaga, sidor 2021. , s. 43
Nyckelord [en]
Benford's law, Covid-19, Chi-square, MAD, distribution distance
Nationell ämneskategori
Sannolikhetsteori och statistik
Identifikatorer URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-54560 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-54560 DiVA, id: diva2:1562147
Ämne / kurs Matematik/tillämpad matematik
Presentation
2021-06-02, 11:02 (Engelska)
Handledare
Examinatorer
2021-06-112021-06-082021-06-11 Bibliografiskt granskad