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Bayesian methods and software for spatial data analysis are well-established now in the broader scientific community generally and in the spatial data analysis community specifically. Despite the wide application of spatial models, the analysis of multivariate spatial data using the integrated nested Laplace approximation through its R package (R-INLA) has not been widely described in the existing literature. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to demonstrate that R-INLA is a convenient toolbox to analyse different types of multivariate spatial datasets. This will be illustrated by analysing three datasets which are publicly available. Furthermore, the details and the R code of these analyses are provided to exemplify how to fit models to multivariate spatial datasets with R-INLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) provides a fast and effective method for marginal inference in Bayesian hierarchical models. This methodology has been implemented in the R-INLA package which permits INLA to be used from within R statistical software. Although INLA is implemented as a general methodology, its use in practice is limited to the models implemented in the R-INLA package. Spatial autoregressive models are widely used in spatial econometrics but have until now been lacking from the R-INLA package. In this paper, we describe the implementation and application of a new class of latent models in INLA made available through R-INLA. This new latent class implements a standard spatial lag model. The implementation of this latent model in R-INLA also means that all the other features of INLA can be used for model fitting, model selection and inference in spatial econometrics, as will be shown in this paper. Finally, we will illustrate the use of this new latent model and its applications with two data sets based on Gaussian and binary outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]