On Robust Measures of Spatial Correlation

As a rule statistical measures are often vulnerable to the presence of outliers and spatial correlation coefficients, critical in the assessment of spatial data, remain susceptible to this inherent flaw. In contexts where data originates from a variety of domains (such as, e. g., socio-economic, environmental or epidemiological disciplines) it is quite common to encounter not just anomalous data points, but also non-normal distributions. These irregularities can significantly distort the broader analytical landscape often masking significant spatial attributes. This paper embarks on a mission to enhance the resilience of traditional spatial correlation metrics, specifically the Moran Coefficient (MC), Geary's Contiguity ratio (GC), and the Approximate Profile Likelihood Estimator (APLE) and to propose a series of alternative measures. Drawing inspiration from established analytical paradigms, our research harnesses the power of influence function studies to examine the robustness of the proposed novel measures in the presence of different outlier scenarios.