Detection and correction of data errors in the practice of actuarial pension consulting

Abstract

Most organisational databases have a significant number of data errors. While these errors can have an effect on organisational outcomes, the effect can be lessened if users of these databases detect and correct data errors in the systems they use. While the literature suggests that user effectiveness in detecting data errors varies, results presented in this paper demonstrate that consulting actuaries are effective detectors of data errors and that their detection behaviour is affected by incentives to detect data errors, the materiality of data errors, and the ease with which data errors can be corrected once detected.