New Technologies, Wages and Worker Selection.

We study the impact on New Technologies (NT) on wages and employment using a unique panel that matches data on individuals and on their firms. Like in the U.S., we show that computer users are better paid than non-users. But we show that these workers are already better compensated before the introduction of the NTs. Total returns to computer use amount to 2%. Even when taking into account the possible measurement errors, total returns cannot exceed 4%, far from the cross-section estimates. Furthermore, computer users are protected from job losses as long as bad business conditions do not last too long. this result holds even after controlling for possible selection biases.