A working estimating equation for spatial count data

[[abstract]]This paper proposes a working estimating equation which is computationally easy to use for spatial count data. The proposed estimating equation is a modification of quasi-likelihood estimating equations without the need of correctly specifying the covariance matrix. Under some regularity conditions, we show that the proposed estimator has consistency and asymptotic normality. A simulation comparison also indicates that the proposed method has competitive performance in dealing with over-dispersion data from a parameter-driven model