Spatial Unit Roots in Regressions: A Practitioner's Guide and a Stata Package

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• Working paper
• Stata package

Abstract

Spatial unit roots can lead to spurious regression results. We present a brief overview of the methods developed in Müller and Watson (2024) to test for and correct for spatial unit roots. We also introduce a suite of Stata commands (-spur-) implementing these techniques. Our commands exactly replicate results in Müller and Watson (2024) using the same Chetty et al. (2014) data. We present a brief practitioner’s guide for applied researchers.

Citation

Becker, Sascha O., P. David Boll and Hans-Joachim Voth “Spatial Unit Roots in Regressions: A Practitioner’s Guide and a Stata Package”, The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1541 (2025), University of Warwick, Department of Economics.

@TechReport{becker2025,
  author={Becker, Sascha O. and Boll, P. David and Voth, Hans-Joachim},
  title={Spatial Unit Roots in Regressions: A Practitioner's Guide and a Stata Package},
  year=2025,
  institution={University of Warwick, Department of Economics},
  type={The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS)},
  url={https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2025/twerp_1541-_becker.pdf},
  number={1541},
}