Spatial Econometric Modeling of Origin‐destination Flows*

Standard spatial autoregressive models rely on spatial weight structures constructed to model dependence among n regions. Ways of parsimoniously modeling the connectivity among the sample of N = n 2 origin‐destination (OD) pairs that arise in a closed system of interregional flows has remained a stumbling block. We overcome this problem by proposing spatial weight structures that model dependence among the N OD pairs in a fashion consistent with standard spatial autoregressive models. This results in a family of spatial OD models introduced here that represent an extension of the spatial regression models described in Anselin (1988) .