Over the last decades, spatial-interaction models have been increasingly used in economics. However, the development of a sufficiently general asymptotic theory for nonlinear spatial models has been hampered by a lack of relevant central limit theorems (CLTs), uniform laws of large numbers (ULLNs) and pointwise laws of large numbers (LLNs). These limit theorems form the essential building blocks towards developing the asymptotic theory of M-estimators, including maximum likelihood and generalized method of moments estimators. The paper establishes a CLT, ULLN, and LLN for spatial processes or random fields that should be applicable to a broad range of data processes. KeywordsRandom field; spatial process; central limit theorem; uniform law of large numbers; law of large numbers

The development of a general inferential theory for nonlinear models with cross-sectionally or spatially dependent data has been hampered by a lack of appropriate limit theorems. To facilitate a general asymptotic inference theory relevant to economic applications, this paper first extends the notion of near-epoch dependent (NED) processes used in the time series literature to random fields. The class of processes that is NED on, say, an α-mixing process, is shown to be closed under infinite transformations, and thus accommodates models with spatial dynamics. This would generally not be the case for the smaller class of α-mixing processes. The paper then derives a central limit theorem and law of large numbers for NED random fields. These limit theorems allow for fairly general forms of heterogeneity including asymptotically unbounded moments, and accommodate arrays of random fields on unevenly spaced lattices. The limit theorems are employed to establish consistency and asymptotic normality of GMM estimators. These results provide a basis for inference in a wide range of models with spatial dependence.

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This paper proposes a semiparametric generalized method of moments estimator (GMM) estimator for a partially parametric spatial model with endogenous spatially dependent regressors. The finite-dimensional estimator is shown to be consistent and root-n asymptotically normal under some reasonable conditions. A spatial heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance estimator is constructed for the GMM estimator. The leading application is nonlinear spatial autoregressions, which arise in a wide range of strategic interaction models. To derive the asymptotic properties of the estimator, the paper also establishes a stochastic equicontinuity criterion and functional central limit theorem for near-epoch dependent random fields.

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