Technological arbitrage opportunities and interindustry differences in entry rates

•Technological arbitrage opportunities are positively related to entry rates across industries.•Effectiveness of patents, secrecy, and lead time negatively moderates this relationship.•Arbitrage opportunities explain entrepreneurial dynamics above and beyond innovative opportunities.•Arbitrage opportunities are very effective in explaining entry rates.

In this study we investigate the relationship between technological arbitrage opportunities and entry rates in twenty-six industries over the course of five years. Arbitrage opportunities are shown to be a positive and significant predictor of business entry rates. Such positive effect is weakened in industries with strong appropriability regime including effective patents, secrecy, and lead time. Adding arbitrage opportunities to the typical determinants of entrepreneurship such as innovative opportunities significantly increases predictive power of the regression models.