Spatial econometrics deals with spatial dependence and spatial
heterogeneity, critical aspects of the data used by regional scientists.
These characteristics may cause standard econometric techniques to
become inappropriate. In this book, I combine several recent research
results to construct a comprehensive approach to the incorporation of
spatial effects in econometrics. My primary focus is to demonstrate how
these spatial effects can be considered as special cases of general
frameworks in standard econometrics, and to outline how they necessitate
a separate set of methods and techniques, encompassed within the field
of spatial econometrics. My viewpoint differs from that taken in the
discussion of spatial autocorrelation in spatial statistics - e.g., most
recently by Cliff and Ord (1981) and Upton and Fingleton (1985) - in
that I am mostly concerned with the relevance of spatial effects on
model specification, estimation and other inference, in what I caIl a
model-driven approach, as opposed to a data-driven approach in spatial
statistics. I attempt to combine a rigorous econometric perspective with
a comprehensive treatment of methodological issues in spatial analysis.