Bachelor’s Degree Project in Mathematics, Division of Mathematics and Physics Mälardalen University, Sweden.
ISSN/ISBN: Not available at this time. DOI: Not available at this time.
Abstract: In order for governments and demographers to, among other things, design policies and pension plans, 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 the worldwide 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.
Bibtex:
@thesis{,
author = {Nikolaos Giannakis and Leonid Burlac},
title = {Benford’s Law: Analysis of the trustworthiness of COVID-19 reporting in the context of different political regimes},
year = {2021},
institution = {Division of Mathematics and Physics, Mälardalen University},
address = {Se-721 23 Västerås, Sweden},
type = {{Undergraduate Thesis}},
url = {https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1562147&dswid=9523},
}
Reference Type: Thesis
Subject Area(s): Medical Sciences