In this paper I will focus exclusively on opportunity in the narrow sense and therefore on the origin of the required knowledge. For the purpose of this paper an opportunity exists when all reqiured elements of knowledge are "out there" and await the arrival of a keen entrepreneur to recognize,...

This paper challenges the key assumption in "idea based growth models" that innovation rents ultimately reward the creation of knowledge. In modern capitalist economies the agents that commercialize new ideas, the entrepreneurs, receive the bulk of the innovation rents and are generally the...