Applying Benford’s Law to Monitor Death Registration Data: A Management Tool for the COVID-19 Pandemic

Francisco Gabriel Morillas-Jurado, María Caballer-Tarazona and Vicent Caballer-Tarazona
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Francisco Gabriel Morillas-Jurado: Department of Applied Economics, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
María Caballer-Tarazona: Department of Applied Economics, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Vicent Caballer-Tarazona: Department of Corporate Finance, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: In Spain, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the various regions of the country differently. The availability of reliable and up-to-date information has proved to be fundamental for the management of this health crisis. However, especially during the first wave of the pandemic (February–August 2020), the disparity in the recording criteria and in the timing of providing these figures to the central government created controversy and confusion regarding the real dimension of the pandemic. It is therefore necessary to have objective and homogeneous criteria at the national level to guide health managers in the correct recording and evaluation of the magnitude of the pandemic. Within this context, we propose using Benford’s Law as an auditing tool to monitor the reliability of the number of daily COVID-related deaths to identify possible deviations from the expected trend.

Keywords: COVID-19 deaths; Benford’s Law; health management tool; reliability data; auditing tool (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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