Nouvelles technologies et emploi. À propos d'une étude du BIPE sur l'impact des technologies de l'information et de la communication

Anne de Beer and Gérard Blanc comment here on a recent study by the BIPE on the impact of the information and communications technologies (ICTs) on growth, productivity and employment.
We know that over two decades the investments in ICTs seem not to have had a major impact on productivity and employment -hence Solow’s famous paradox: “computers are everywhere except in the statistics”. Perhaps, suggest the authors, this is because the introduction of these technologies required a considerable effort of organizational and sociocultural adaptation and innovation which occurred slowly.
According to the BIPE, however, the impact of the ICTs appears to have been clearly positive, first in the United States since the mid 1990s, slightly later in France. Not only did these technologies constitute an extremely dynamic sector but, in addition, they encouraged the whole range of economic activities and therefore had a major multiplier effect on growth, productivity and employment.
Basing its study on the structure of the French economy in 1998, the BIPE attempted to estimate the multiplier effect that the ICTs might have on the French economy between now and 2003. This article briefly reviews these simulations, which are quite promising.