Informal retailing and itinerant merchants in Morocco Between repression and institutionalization

This article analyses the logics of the functioning and proliferation of informal retailing and hawkers in the case of an emerging country like Morocco. The proliferation of informal retailing raises problems of unfair competition vis-a-vis the formal sector but also many problems of congestion and illegal occupation of the public spaces and state property. The paper also addresses the nature of public policies that oscillate between repression and institutionalization.