Micro-entrepreneurs’ Financial and Digital Competences During the Pandemic in Italy

Alessio D’Ignazio (), Paolo Finaldi Russo and Massimiliano Stacchini
Additional contact information
Alessio D’Ignazio: Bank of Italy
Paolo Finaldi Russo: Bank of Italy
Massimiliano Stacchini: Bank of Italy

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, 2025, vol. 11, issue 2, No 6, 607-643

Abstract: Abstract We analyse new survey data from a representative sample of 1998 Italian micro-entrepreneurs to assess their level of financial and digital competences and to investigate whether these skills help them cope with unexpected shocks. Our findings indicate that financial literacy and digital skills of Italian micro-entrepreneurs are somewhat limited, particularly among owners with lower levels of education and one-person businesses. By controlling for several business characteristics, we also find that financial literacy is significantly correlated with the transition to more digitalized business models and with greater resilience to external shocks: financially savvy entrepreneurs were better able to build liquidity buffers prior to the COVID-19 crisis and access government aids during the pandemic. Regarding the role of digital skills in supporting businesses during the crisis, the empirical evidence is less conclusive.

Keywords: Financial literacy; Digitalization; Micro-firms; Covid19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40797-024-00306-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:italej:v:11:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s40797-024-00306-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40797

DOI: 10.1007/s40797-024-00306-1

Access Statistics for this article

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti is currently edited by Roberto Cellini

More articles in Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti from Springer, Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().