Do entrepreneurial ecosystems improve social progress beyond economic development?

Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether the quality of entrepreneurial ecosystems is associated with prosperity beyond GDP, focusing on territorial social progress. The authors also assess whether ecosystem quality relates to “prosperity coherence,” that is, smaller mismatches between social outcomes and what local economic development would predict (including downside shortfalls), and the authors explore the role of productive entrepreneurship and heterogeneity across social-progress dimensions and development levels. Design/methodology/approach The authors study 107 Italian provinces (NUTS-3) using a staged design that separates ecosystem conditions (2021), productive entrepreneurship (2021–2023) and social progress (2024). Entrepreneurial ecosystem quality is captured through a composite index built from multiple ecosystem-condition indicators. Productive entrepreneurship is captured via (i) the density of “PMI innovative” firms and (ii) employment growth in higher value-added sectors. Social progress is measured with the Social Progress Index, both overall and by its three pillars (Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing and Opportunity). The authors estimate cross-sectional models with regional fixed effects and controls for economic development, test an indirect pathway via productive entrepreneurship and operationalize prosperity coherence through measures of underperformance relative to development. The lagged structure aligns measurement with the theoretical sequence, while the estimates are interpreted as conditional associations across provinces. Findings Entrepreneurial ecosystem quality is positively associated with social progress after accounting for economic development and regional structure. At the pillar level, the association is strongest for Opportunity and is also significant for Basic Human Needs, while Foundations of Wellbeing is positive but not statistically significant at conventional levels. Interaction models indicate that the EEQI-social progress relationship is stronger in less-developed provinces, particularly for Foundations of Wellbeing and, to a lesser extent, for Opportunity. Evidence for productive entrepreneurship as a single explanatory pathway is partial: ecosystem quality is positively related to productive entrepreneurship, but this link weakens once economic development is included, and productive entrepreneurship does not retain an independent association with social progress when ecosystem quality and development are controlled for. Finally, ecosystem quality is linked to lower “conversion deficits” (i.e. less downside underperformance of social progress relative to what development would predict), while results are weaker for symmetric mismatch measures. Originality/value This study extends entrepreneurial ecosystem research to non-income prosperity outcomes, introduces a prosperity-coherence/conversion-deficit lens and provides nuanced evidence on mechanisms by showing that the ecosystem-social progress relationship is not fully accounted for by the authors’ proxy measures of productive entrepreneurship in this context.