When Working for the Brooklyn District Attorney, Investigator Robert Burton

question 25

Essay

$\begin{array} { | l | c | c | c | c | c | c | c | c | c | } \hline \text { Leading Digit } & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 & 9 \\\hline \begin{array} { l } \text { Benford's law: } \\\text { distribution of } \\\text { leading digits }\end{array} & 30.1 \% & 17.6 \% & 12.5 \% & 9.7 \% & 7.9 \% & 6.7 \% & 5.8 \% & 5.1 \% & 4.6 \% \\\hline\end{array}$
When working for the Brooklyn District Attorney, investigator Robert Burton analyzed the leading digits of the amounts from 784 checks issued by seven suspect companies. The frequencies were found to be 0,18,0,79,476,180,8,23 , and 0 , and those digits correspond to the leading digits of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 , and 9 , respectively. If the observed frequencies are substantially different from the frequencies expected with Benford's Law, the check amounts appear to result from fraud. Use a 0.05 significance level to test for goodness-of-fit with Benford's Law. Does it appear that the checks are the result of fraud?

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Definitions:

Obligations

A legal or financial duty that an entity is required to fulfill, such as debt repayment or service delivery.

Liabilities With Priority

Obligations of a business that are given precedence over other debts, especially in the context of bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings.

Order Of Relief

A court order that provides a debtor protection from creditors under bankruptcy proceedings.