Entrepreneurial Skills, Technological Progress, and Firm Growth *

Using cross‐country establishment‐level data, I show that employment profiles over a firm's life cycle are flatter in fast‐growing economies than in slow‐growing economies. The difference in average employment over the firm's life cycle increases with plant age. I propose a frictionless overlapping‐generations model with exogenous technological progress. Firm productivity also depends on entrepreneurs’ skills. Entrepreneurs can increase their skills over their life cycle, but the growth of the vintage component of younger cohorts’ skills is higher in fast‐growing economies than in slow‐growing economies. This model is able to explain most of the differences observed in the sample between fast‐growing and slow‐growing economies.