The Role of Migration Experience in Migrants' Destination Choice

Abstract

In this article, we employ a panel household survey from Tajikistan to study labor migrants' location choices in Russia. We find that labor migrants from Tajikistan consider a wide variety of economic, demographic, and geographical characteristics of Russian regions when making location choices. We also find that experienced migrants are less responsive to current regional characteristicsthat might suggest path dependence in destination choices by experienced migrants.