Entrepreneurial ecosystem, institutional quality and regional economic development in Morocco: A systematic literature review using the PRISMA method

Abstract

Entrepreneurial ecosystems and institutional quality have attracted growing interest in development economics research since the pioneering works of North (1990) and Baumol (1990). In Morocco, where the youth unemployment rate (15-24 years) reached 36.7% in 2024 (HCP, 2025) and where more than 80% of entrepreneurs are necessity-driven (GEM Morocco, 2024), the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems, institutional quality and regional development remains insufficiently explored. This article aims to systematically map this field using the PRISMA 2020 method (Page et al., 2021) on Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases for the period 2015-2025. From 10,577 initially identified references, 79 studies were retained after applying rigorous inclusion/exclusion criteria. The descriptive analysis covers all 79 articles; the in-depth thematic analysis concerns 18 empirical studies. VOSviewer and NVivo software are used to visualize co-citation networks and thematic landscapes. Our analysis reveals the primacy of institutional quality over other regional development determinants, the mediating role of innovative entrepreneurship in transmitting institutional effects on growth, and the persistence of strong regional disparities insufficiently addressed in existing literature. The article concludes by proposing a research agenda and an integrated analytical framework for future research on entrepreneurial ecosystems in Morocco and Africa.