This paper analyzes the location choice of migrants at the regional level. We test the hypothesis that networks and the ability
to communicate in the host country language, as proxied by linguistic distance, are substitutes in the location decision.
Based on individual-level data from a special evaluation of the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and a random utility
maximization framework, we find that networks have a positive effect on the location decisions while the effect of linguistic
distance is negative. We also find a strong positive interaction effect between the two factors: networks are more important
the larger the linguistic distance between the home country and the host region, and the negative effect of linguistic distance
is smaller the larger the network size. In several extensions and robustness checks, we show that this substitutable relationship
is extremely robust. Especially, we demonstrate that our results are not biased by multilateral resistance to migration.
JEL-Codes:F22, J61, R23
Research group:Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis