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"spdep": check whether a spatial model fully controls for spatial correlation

Dear Roger, thank you very much for your advice.

I ran Lagrange tests. The tests yielded very small p-values for both spatial lag and error models. Both RLMerr and RLMlag are all very significant (with very small p-values) and the p-value of RLMerr is even smaller. So I went with the spatial Durbin error model (SDEM). The regular spatial Durbin model (SDM) did not work (it produced many NAs in the estimates).

Because it is unclear how exactly my observations relate to each, I decide to test is out. I construct spatial weight matrices with different number of neighbors (k=10, 20, 50, &100). I run a SDEM with each spatial weight matrix and compare their AICs and log likelihoods. Oddly, SDEMs with smaller spatial weight matrix performed better (smaller AIC and higher log likelihood). This seems to suggest that in my case, the model works better when it considers a smaller number of neighboring observations. I also observe that SDEMs with larger weight matrices (e.g. k=50 or 100) tend to yield larger indirect effects (larger coefficients of lag.Xs). In some cases, the indirect effects are unreasonably large. This seems to confirm that with my data, SDEMs with smaller weight matrices perform better.

Is this somewhat counter-intuitive, given that the Moran's I test suggests very strong spatial auto-correlation in my data? Does this mean that I should go with the SDEM with k=10, or even decrease K number below 10?

Best
Gary