st: Independence between clusters, how to test?

[Garry Anderson <g.anderson@unimelb.edu.au>]

Hi,

With panel data, how may one test the assumption that CLUSTERS are 
statistically independent?

With the xt--- commands this assumption is always required, but I am unsure 
as to how it can be verified. For example, students within schools, but 
schools are assumed to be independent of each other. It could be 
hypothesized that schools that are next to each other are not independent. 
It is assumed that there is *not* another level of nesting, such as school 
administration district.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

Kind regards, Garry

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