[R-sig-Geo] Error in lag.listw(listw2, u) : Variable contains non-finite values - panel spatial model using splm

[Roger Bivand]

On Mon, 10 Jun 2019, Marco Mello via R-sig-Geo wrote:

> Dear community,

Please post plain text, not HTML, easier to copy and paste into an R 
session.

>
> I am working on a panel spatial model in R using the package splm. In 
> particular I am trying to estimate the following model
>
> spatpan<-spml(y ~ x, data = data_p, index = NULL, listw = W30, na.action 
> = na.fail, lag = TRUE, spatial.error = "b", model = "within", effect = 
> "twoways",zero.policy=TRUE)
>
> but I get the following error and warnings:
>
> Error in lag.listw(listw2, u) : Variable contains non-finite values
> In addition: Warning messages:
> 1: In lag.listw(listw, u) : NAs in lagged values
> 2: In lag.listw(listw, u) : NAs in lagged values
> 3: In lag.listw(listw2, u) : NAs in lagged values
> 4: In lag.listw(listw2, u) : NAs in lagged values
>

This is not a reproducible example. Such an example is needed unless you 
can run traceback() and debug() yourself to solve the problem, but since 
you have posted, I assume you prefer that someone else runs debug() - and 
someone will then need a reproducible example, preferably with an adapted 
standard dataset (add NAs to Produc?).

I seem to recall that zero.policy= was not always passed through in some 
model fitting functions, possibly in splm. If so, set the option with 
spatialreg::set.ZeroPolicyOption(TRUE) and/or 
spdep::set.ZeroPolicyOption(TRUE)
to avoid that issue if it is present and biting. Of course, had I had a 
reproducible example, I could have checked and given clearer advice.

>
> Similarly, if I model the spatial correlation only for the error term,
>
> spatpan<-spml(y ~ x, data = data_p, index = NULL, listw = W30, na.action 
> = na.fail, lag = FALSE, spatial.error = "b", model = "within", effect = 
> "twoways",zero.policy=TRUE)
>
> I get the following warnings
>
> 1: In lag.listw(listw, u) : NAs in lagged values
>
> ...
>
> 3: In lag.listw(listw, TT) : NAs in lagged values
>
> ...
>
> 35: In optimize(sarpanelerror, interval = interval, maximum = TRUE, ... :
> NA/Inf replaced by maximum positive value
>
> ...
>
>
> In this case however the model turns out to be estimated, despite the 
> standard errors are everywhere NAs and the spatial rho coefficient equal 
> to 1 with weird t stats and p-values.
>
> An identical problem to mine was already signalled in this mailing list, 
> unfortunately without receiving any suggestion : 
> http://r-sig-geo.2731867.n2.nabble.com/problems-using-spml-with-a-listw-where-not-everybody-has-a-neighbour-td7587857.html.

Nabble is only an archive, the real link is:

https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-geo/2015-March/022428.html

The posting also gave no reproducible example, so nobody had anything to 
work on.

Hope this helps,

Roger

>
> I guess that the issue could be due to the n by n spatial weighting 
> matrix W30, which contains some neighbourless observations. However this 
> feature should be taken into account by the zero.policy option. Moreover 
> the same framework perfectly works in the cross-sectional case, by using 
> the function sacsarlm from the package spdep.
>
> Please, does anybody know what is causing this and how can I solve this 
> issue? Any help would be really appreciated.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Marco Mello
>
>
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>
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-- 
Roger Bivand
Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics,
Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
voice: +47 55 95 93 55; e-mail: Roger.Bivand using nhh.no
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2392-6140
https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=AWeghB0AAAAJ&hl=en