This article examines the evolving location patterns of African migrants to answer the question: What determines African migrants’ destination choices? Analysing regular migration between 10 African source countries and 10 OECD destinations from 1990 to 2017, it highlights how barriers such as distance, policy restrictions and historical ties shape migration distribution. Findings reveal that while productivity drives spatial concentration for countries such as Egypt, migration costs and location-specific effects are critical in perpetuating migration patterns. The article distinguishes between traditional and emerging destinations, using advances in modelling increasing returns to scale to capture the geographical concentration and dispersion of African migrants.
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