Entrepreneurs Seeking Gains: Profit Motives and Risk Aversion in Inventors’ Commercialization Decisions

Direct evidence has been lacking on entrepreneurs’ response to individual-specific opportunities, and recent work suggests that entrepreneurship may be a non-profit-seeking activity and that entrepreneurs evaluate risk oddly. We model heterogeneous inventors and inventions, outside opportunities, sunk and non-sunk costs, and risk, to guide data analysis. We use assessment data from a center paid to assess the inventions’ economic potential. Inventors’ choices whether to commercialize their inventions and later whether to remain in production were consistent with profit-seeking motives and risk aversion.