Applying Benford's Law for Assessing the Validity of Social Science Data
Published on 23. November 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-009-12424-9 (ISBN)
Description
Benford's Law is a probability distribution for the likelihood of the leading digit in a set of numbers. This book seeks to improve and systematize the use of Benford's Law in the social sciences to assess the validity of self-reported data. The authors first introduce a new measure of conformity to the Benford distribution that is created using permutation statistical methods and employs the concept of statistical agreement. In a switch from a typical Benford application, this book moves away from using Benford's Law to test whether the data conform to the Benford distribution, to using it to draw conclusions about the validity of the data. The concept of 'Benford validity' is developed, which indicates whether a dataset is valid based on comparisons with the Benford distribution and, in relation to this, diagnostic procedure that assesses the impact of not having Benford validity on data analysis is devised.
Reviews / Votes
'This impressive book, written by and for social scientists, provides an excellent introduction and comprehensive overview of the application of Benford's Law in social research. Using real-world datasets and easy-to-follow examples, the authors have done an outstanding job in demonstrating how their methodology/tool can be implemented to evaluate and enhance the validity of self-reported social data.' Jayajit Chakraborty, University of Texas at El Paso, USA 'Long and co-authors offer a systematic and accessible approach, 'Benford agreement analysis', to dealing with data validity concerns. The examples and discussion of when to use the approach make this book equally valuable for methodologists and empirical social scientists, and will work very well in research methods and statistics courses.' Andrew Jorgenson, University of British Columbia, CanadaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
332 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-12424-9 (9781009124249)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Michael A. Long | Paul B. Stretesky | Kenneth J. Berry
Applying Benford's Law for Assessing the Validity of Social Science Data
Book
11/2023
Cambridge University Press
€93.20
Shipment within 15-20 days
Michael A. Long | Paul B. Stretesky | Kenneth J. Berry
Applying Benford's Law for Assessing the Validity of Social Science Data
E-Book
11/2023
Cambridge University Press
€27.99
Available for download
Persons
Michael A. Long is a Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, USA. He is the author or co-author of six books and over 90 journal articles and book chapters primarily in the areas of environmental sociology, green criminology, sustainability, food insecurity, public health, and quantitative methodology. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, the British Academy, among others for his research.
Content
1. Introduction; 2. Validity and self-reported data; 3. Benford's law and assessing conformity; 4. Data characteristics and the workflow of Benford agreement analysis; 5. Benford agreement analysis of the Sea Around Us project fish landings data; 6. Benford agreement analysis of US and global COVID-19 new-cases data; 7. Assessing impacts of problematic Benford validity; 8. Conclusion.