Is benford’s law a universal behavioral theory?

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the question and present evidence as to whether or not Benford’s exponential first significant digit (FSD) law reflects a fundamental principle behind the complex and nondeterministic nature of large-scale physical and behavioral systems. As a behavioral example, we focus on the FSD distribution of Australian micro income data and use information theoretic entropy methods to investigate the degree that corresponding empirical income distributions are consistent with Benford’s law.