Researchers of the various social science involved, including of course Demography, have so far failed to indicate with certainty what is, from the viewpoint of economic theory, the correlation between the trend of in a given geographical area resident population and its socio-economic development.
However, the debate on the relationship between population and development is still very relevant, especially from a political perspective, in general, and from they of economic policy, in particular, and this for the simple reason that the size, composition, and the quality level of the population is in any case a decisive factor for the development chances of any region.
From what has just been observed, an opportunity emerges for more specifically reconsidering this issue on a territorial scope, constituted by the province of Ferrara, with reference to two periods of more than 10 years, which – being in between the Second World War and the present day – make it possible to reconstruct for this part of Emilia-Romagna some of the important stages of its latest evolution.