Are infrastructures important to stop rural depopulation?

The aim of this article is to study the causes of rural depopulation and, particularly, the role of infrastructures. To do this we build a panel data set at the municipal level where the rural population has been defined at a very fine level of granularity. The main results show the importance of infrastructures to maintain rural population. The presence of a medium-size town in the municipality helps to fix the population in the countryside. However, the income gap with urban municipalities contributes to reduce rural population