Resumen de Are infrastructures important to stop rural depopulation?

Verónica Cañal Fernández, Antonio Álvarez Pinilla

• 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.