Local Demographic Transition and Distant Region Development. Case of Russian Monasteries.

In this work I analyze the process of migration of people in a developing society. I show that in a new region the demographic transition can be achieved quicker than in the old region. I ground my research on a theoretical model and provide an empirical evidence. I extend the unified growth theory by Galor of long run development. Particularly I release the assumption of fixed land available and show how the results obtained provide insides in the process of state expansion. I show that there are incentives to move to the distant place. The small size of the labour force there and, thus the lack of labour division is compensated with higher education, thus leading to the demographic transition. Also, I provide evidence for the model using the natural experiment in Russian history. Looking at the secularization of monasteries' lands in 18th century I use the regression analysis to find out if persistence of the monastery in the area led to higher levels of development.