Spatial econometrics (1, Spatial autocorrelation)

Spatial econometric methods aim at taking into account the two special characteristics of spatial data: spatial autocorrelation, which is the lack of independence between geographical observations, and spatial heterogeneity, which is related to the differentiation of variables and behaviors in space. These techniques have been mostly developed the last ten years and are more often applied in empirical studies with geographical data. The aim of this article is to present the way spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity can be incorporated in regression relationships and to present the estimation and inference procedures adapted to the models incorporating these two effects. This article is divided in two parts. This first part deals with spatial autocorrelation (working paper N° 2000-05) and the second part will deal with spatial heterogeneity.