Spatial Stochastic Processes: Terminology and General Properties

In this chapter I discuss in general terms the formal mathematical and statistical background for the estimation and testing of spatial econometric models. Even though this material is highly abstract, I will keep the treatment rather informal. An in-depth discussion of the various definitions, theorems and proofs would clearly be beyond the scope of this book. Since the relevant theoretical literature is extensive, a main motivation for this chapter is to bring together some important results that have been presented in a variety of sources.