Depopulation in the Central Apennines in the Twentieth Century: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract We propose an empirical investigation of the population dynamics between 1931 and 2011 in a mountain area in Italy. The main novelty of our work is the usage of sub-municipal data, which makes it possible to disentangle several drivers of the overall depopulation trend. All these factors had been considered previously by separate strands of literature, but never jointly, as we do. One of our most interesting results is that different factors operate in different historical periods. Therefore, we use a flexible strategy by which we divide the sample in four different 20-year spans and adopt a different statistical model for each. Another notable result is that an appropriate quantitative description of the phenomenon must take into account the disappearance of inhabited centres separately from their size in terms on inhabitants. Consequently, the concept of local community is crucial for a systematic understanding of population change and “place-sensitive” policies in remote mountain areas.