netdat function

Construct a network design matrix

This function creates the design matrix for a latent network structure using a balanced panel

netdat(datf, Y, X, Wi, W = NULL, panvar, tvar, factors, scaling = TRUE,
  unicons = TRUE)

Arguments

• datf: the entire data frame of balanced panel with NT rows of unit-time observations
• Y: dependent variable in the data frame datf
• X: the covariate(s) generating spillovers
• Wi: other unit-varying (can be time-invariant) control variables
• W: global variables. these are only time varying but are common to all units. eg. GDP for individual/state-level data. Note that W has to be a vector of length T so cannot be in the data frame datf
• panvar: the panel variable eg. unique person/firm identifiers
• tvar: time variable, eg. years
• factors: a vector of characters of factors in the data
• scaling: a logical indicating whether non-discrete covariates should be scaled by their standard deviations
• unicons: a logical indicating whether to include unit-specific constant term

Returns

Y vector of dependent variables

X a block matrix of spillover matrix ($TN$ x $N^2$ )

Wm a matrix corresponding to covariate Wi

Wf a matrix of dummies corresponding to factors