## Involve: A Journal of Mathematics

• Involve
• Volume 8, Number 5 (2015), 859-874.

### The Weibull distribution and Benford's law

#### Abstract

Benford’s law states that many data sets have a bias towards lower leading digits (about 30% are 1s). It has numerous applications, from designing efficient computers to detecting tax, voter and image fraud. It’s important to know which common probability distributions are almost Benford. We show that the Weibull distribution, for many values of its parameters, is close to Benford’s law, quantifying the deviations. As the Weibull distribution arises in many problems, especially survival analysis, our results provide additional arguments for the prevalence of Benford behavior. The proof is by Poisson summation, a powerful technique to attack such problems.

#### Article information

Source
Involve, Volume 8, Number 5 (2015), 859-874.

Dates
Revised: 19 October 2014
Accepted: 1 December 2014
First available in Project Euclid: 22 November 2017

https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.involve/1511370953

Digital Object Identifier
doi:10.2140/involve.2015.8.859

Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet)
MR3404662

Zentralblatt MATH identifier
1329.60086

#### Citation

Cuff, Victoria; Lewis, Allison; Miller, Steven J. The Weibull distribution and Benford's law. Involve 8 (2015), no. 5, 859--874. doi:10.2140/involve.2015.8.859. https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.involve/1511370953

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