Using the Newcomb-Benford law to study the association between a country's COVID-19 reporting accuracy and its development.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred controversies related to whether countries manipulate reported data for political gains. We study the association between accuracy of reported COVID-19 data and developmental indicators. We use the Newcomb-Benford law (NBL) to gauge data accuracy. We run an OLS regression of an index constructed from developmental indicators (democracy level, gross domestic product per capita, healthcare expenditures, and universal healthcare coverage) on goodness-of-fit measures to the NBL. We find that countries with higher values of the developmental index are less likely to deviate from the Newcomb-Benford law. The relationship holds for the cumulative number of reported deaths and total cases but is more pronounced for the death toll. The findings are robust for secon

SUBMITTER: Balashov VS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8617306 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature