Using a novel large database of Italian micro-entrepreneurs, we investigate how different sources of external business advice affect access to alternative finance. We distinguish three categories of external business advice: professional financial, professional non-financial, and non-professional. We also test whether financial knowledge of micro-entrepreneurs enhances their advice seeking for financial decision-making. We find that the use of alternative financial instruments increases when external business advisors are used, but some are more useful than others. Only professional financial advice is shown to increase the probability of accessing alternative finance by micro-enterprises, while non-professional and professional non-financial advice does not have the same effect. We also find that being more financially literate increases the probability that micro-entrepreneurs seek advice from highly professional sources, i.e., objective financial knowledge helps shape the quality of financial advice requested.

我们利用意大利微型企业家的新型大型数据库，研究了不同来源的外部商业建议如何影响替代金融​​的获取。我们将外部业务建议分为三类：专业财务建议、专业非财务建议和非专业建议。我们还测试了微型企业家的金融知识是否增强了他们寻求财务决策建议的能力。我们发现，当使用外部业务顾问时，替代金融工具的使用会增加，但有些工具比其他工具更有用。只有专业的财务建议才能增加小微企业获得替代金融的可能性，而非专业和专业的非财务建议则没有同样的效果。我们还发现，具备更多的财务知识会增加微型企业家从高度专业的来源寻求建议的可能性，即客观的财务知识有助于塑造所要求的财务建议的质量。