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Our research deals with spatial autocorrelation and Collecting geospatial data is not easy. It is more difficult
spatial regression. For visualizing the data we used a in the context of a developing country like Bangladesh.
choropleth map drawn using the equal interval On the top of that, our research is about the geospatial
classification scheme [9] and a Moran Scatter Plot [10]. analysis of statistical data; not geographic or
We used the global Moran statistic to get a sense of the topographic data. So the data we collected did not have
global spatial autocorrelation and then fitted the data to any geographical Meta data for Geographic Information
an appropriate spatial regression model. Systems – such as longitudes and latitudes. We had to
geo-reference the data ourselves by associating elements
A. Global Spatial Autocorrelation from the data set to geographic polygons in a Zila level
Spatial autocorrelation is the correlation of a variable digital map of Bangladesh.
with itself across space. A common statistic used for First we had to collect this digital map. This was
this is the Moran’s I index [11]. It is calculated by the relatively easy since an online project called Global
following formula: Administrative Areas (GADM) [13] had it and allowed
free academic usage. The map was in ESRI shape file
format [14]. Our data analysis tool could read it without
any problems. We had to edit a few Zila names to make
them consistent with the ones used in our data.
We got our statistical data from Bangladesh Bureau of
Here, I is the Moran’s I index. The sign and magnitude Statistics (BBS) – which is Bangladesh government's
of this index gives the nature of the correlation of the N official organization for the collection and
number of points that are all indexed by i and j. is the dissemination of statistical data. This paper deals with
current point in the data set that is under consideration, geospatial characteristics on Zila level literacy rates and
the number of educational establishments. Those data Table I Calculated Moran’s I Values
are available in publications compiled by the BBS. Variable Moran’s I
Literacy rates are collected at 10 year intervals as part of Literacy Rate of 2001 0.4465
the National Population Census. The data about number Educational
of educational establishments is collected at a similar -0.0676
Establishments
time interval as part of the National Economic Census.
The literacy rates we have used are from Population
Census 2001 [15]. The rates show what percentage of
the population of age 7 and above in a Zila are literate.
The data for the number of educational establishments
in each Zila comes from Economic Census 2001 [16].
The R-squared for linear regression is close to 1 that From Table IV we observe that the probability value for
demonstrates the goodness of fit between the linear the LM Lag model is only significant among others. The
model and the data we have. As the data is fitted quite significance is tested by the value of the probability
well by linear regression model we do not consider (PROB). If the value is <0.04 then we consider it to be
higher order models in this research. significant [8]. As the probability is of LM Lag model is
Before including the spatial characteristics into 0.02 we consider to fit the data with this model. The
consideration we first test whether any spatial spatial Lag model is presented below:
autocorrelation exists in data. A total of five test lit 01 = CONST + a1lit 91 + β Wlit 01
statistics are reported in Table IV to test for the spatial
dependence.
Here, Wlit 01 is a spatially lagged dependent variable for presents the scatter plot Moran’s test statistic is 0.0146,
the weight matrix W , lit91 is the literacy rate in 1991, or essentially zero. This indicates that including the
spatially lagged term into model eliminates all the
CONST is a constant term, a1 and β are parameters or spatial autocorrelation as it should be.
the coefficients. Running the spatial lag model we find
the following value of coefficients and corresponding
significances.
Table V Spatial Lag Model Results
Variable Coeff Std. Err z-value Prob
W _ lit 01 0.2731 0.0982 2.78009 0.0054
CONST 6.0409 3.0344 1.99075 0.0465
lit91 0.8634 0.0889 9.70776 0.0000