A Primer for Spatial Econometrics aims to meet a growing demand in the field by introducing basic spatial econometrics methodologies to a wide variety of researchers. Spatial econometrics is a relatively new topic that is becoming increasingly popular in many of the social sciences. Readers will find this text to be an approachable, informative springboard for their own research and an invaluable support for those that want to start working immediately with the methods. It moves beyond previous studies as it is aimed explicitly at bridging the gap between a basic econometric textbook and more specialized texts in the subject.
This book provides a practical guide that illustrates the potential of spatial econometric modelling, discusses problems and solutions and enables the reader both to interpret empirical results correctly and to start working with the methods. It provides essential notions and key insights as well as providing references for further reading to more in-depth discussions. Readers will appreciate the extensive presentation of examples in 'R', which has emerged as the software of choice for model builders in this area. The text is integrated with real numerical examples, problem sets and practical exercises and also contains a description of the essential computer codes of the statistical software 'R'.