To learn more about Benford’s Law (discussed in Focus 8-3), do the following:

a. Read the article “Using Excel and Benford’s Law to Detect Fraud” by J. Carlton Collins in the April 2017 issue of Journal of Accountancy. Then watch the almost 7-minute instructional video at the end of the article.

b. Replicate what the author does in the video. Use Excel to download a population of data, select the first digit, count how many incidents of each digit from 1-9 occur in the data, and then chart the occurrences to see that the data conforms to Benford’s Law.

c. Find another population of data on the Internet and repeat the process. Did your data conform to Benford’s Law? Why or why not?

d. Write a 3-page paper discussing what you found as you completed parts a through c of the problem. Also discuss how you could use Benford’s Law at work or in some other capacity of your life. You may want to investigate Benford’s Law more and include what you found in your report.