Consistent Misspecification Testing in Spatial Autoregressive Models

Jungyoon Lee, Peter Phillips and Francesca Rossi (francesca.rossi_02@univr.it)
Additional contact information
Jungyoon Lee: Royal Holloway, University of London

No 2256, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: Spatial autoregressive (SAR) and related models offer flexible yet parsimonious ways to model spatial or network interaction. SAR specifications typically rely on a particular parametric functional form and an exogenous choice of the so-called spatial weight matrix with only limited guidance from theory in making these specifications. The choice of a SAR model over other alternatives, such as spatial Durbin (SD) or spatial lagged X (SLX) models, is often arbitrary, raising issues of potential specification error. To address such issues, this paper develops an omnibus specification test within the SAR framework that can detect general forms of misspecification including that of the spatial weight matrix, functional form and the model itself. The approach extends the framework of conditional moment testing of Bierens (1982, 1990) to the general spatial setting. We derive the asymptotic distribution of our test statistic under the null hypothesis of correct SAR specification and show consistency of the test. A Monte Carlo study is conducted to study finite sample performance of the test. An empirical illustration on the performance of our test in the modeling of tax competition in Finland and Switzerland is included.

Keywords: Conditional moment test; Misspecification test; Omnibus testing; Spatial AR; Weight matrix misspecification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d22/d2256.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
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:cwl:cwldpp:2256

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
The price is None.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brittany Ladd (cowles@yale.edu).