A longitudinal analysis of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI): evidence from the EuroMed countries

The Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst of digital transformation of businesses, industries, governments and societies worldwide, including in Mediterranean countries. Many studies have been published since the pandemic outbreak to understand the effects produced by such a disruptive event on the digital trends about economic activities and social life and trace the potential paths of digitalization of business, governments and social activities that are likely to characterize the post-covid era. However, excluding conceptual research and grey literature, empirical research on this topic is still in its initial stage of development and warrants additional scholarly attention. Moreover, studies focused on the Mediterranean Region are very scant. With this gap in mind, the goal of this chapter is to understand how Covid-19 have affected the ongoing processes of digitalization in the EuroMed countries through a comparative lens. To this goal we relied on longitudinal data about digitalization produced by the European Union and measured through the so-called Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), that is a comprehensive measure of data related to individual EU members (27) and reflecting different aspects of digitalization. Moreover, qualitative data (based on technical reports, working papers, official documents, etc.) related to each country will be used to support the interpretation of the quantitative analysis. Since the measurement of the digital socio-economic transformation can be used to monitor the progress over time and compare the digital performance of single EuroMed countries, the analysis can provide valuable insights to guide policy making towards a balanced digital development and the progressive reduction of performance gaps existing between more and less digitally advanced countries.