Modeling registered migration flows between regions of the Russian Federation

Using the Ross tat panel data for the 2001–2008 period we estimate the gravity model of migration between Russian regions. We show that though the migration flows have been quite stable, their determinants have changed substantially. Special attention is drawn to the role of distance between the regions. So far we have found out that social and economic factors are affecting migration between nearby regions. Yet our attempts to model the flows between distant (>500 km) places have lead to very poor goodness of fit.