Heterogeneous regression models for clusters of spatial dependent data

Abstract

ABSTRACT In economic development there are often regions that share similar socioeconomic characteristics, and econometrics models on such regions tend to produce similar covariate effect estimates. This paper proposes a Bayesian clustered regression for spatially dependent data in order to detect clusters in covariate effects. The proposed method is based on the Dirichlet process, which provides a probabilistic framework for simultaneous inference of the number of clusters and clustering configurations. The use of the method is illustrated both in simulation studies and by an application to a housing cost data set of Georgia.