Constrained variants of the gravity model and spatial dependence: model specification and estimation issues

Daniel Griffith () and Manfred Fischer ()

Journal of Geographical Systems, 2013, vol. 15, issue 3, 317 pages

Abstract: In this paper, we distinguish three constrained variants of the gravity model of spatial interaction: doubly constrained, production constrained and attraction constrained exponential gravity models. These model variants include origin- and/or destination-specific balancing factors that act as constraints to ensure that the estimated rows and columns of the flow data matrix sum to the observed row and column totals. Because flows are typically counts, the Poisson rather than the normal probability model specification furnishes the appropriate statistical distribution, and parameter estimation can be achieved via Poisson regression. This probability model specification motivates the use of origin and/or destination fixed effects or—under certain conditions—the use of origin- and/or destination-specific random effects for model estimation. The paper establishes theoretical connections between balancing factors, fixed effects represented by binary indicator variables and random effects. The results pertaining to both the doubly and singly constrained cases of spatial interaction are illustrated with an empirical example while accounting for spatial dependence between flows from locations neighbouring both the origins and destinations during estimation. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Keywords: Constrained gravity models; Count data; Patent citation flows; Poisson; Spatial dependence in origin–destination flows; Spatial filtering; Spatial econometrics; C13; C31; R15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10109-013-0182-7 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Chapter: Constrained Variants of the Gravity Model and Spatial Dependence: Model Specification and Estimation Issues (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jgeosy:v:15:y:2013:i:3:p:291-317

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/10109/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10109-013-0182-7

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Geographical Systems is currently edited by Manfred M. Fischer and Antonio Páez

More articles in Journal of Geographical Systems from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().