DO COUNTRIES FALSIFY ECONOMIC DATA STRATEGICALLY? SOME EVIDENCE THAT THEY MIGHT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Michalski, Tomasz; Stoltz, Gilles
• 署名单位: Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Paris; Inria; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Paris
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00274
• 发表日期: 2013-05
• 页码: 591-616
• 关键词: speculative attacks; currency crises; social value; INFORMATION

摘要

Using Benford's law, we find evidence supporting the hypothesis that countries at times misreport their economic data strategically. We group countries with similar economic conditions and find that for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, high negative net foreign asset positions, negative current account balances, or more vulnerable to capital flow reversals, we reject the first-digit law for the balance-of-payments data. This corroborates the intuition of a simple economic model. The main results do not seem to be driven by countries in sub-Saharan Africa or those with low institutional quality ratings.