Compression bounds for wreath products

We show that if $G$ and $H$ are finitely generated groups whose Hilbert compression exponent is positive, then so is the Hilbert compression exponent of the wreath $G \wr H$. We also prove an analogous result for coarse embeddings of wreath products. In the special case $G=\Z$, $H=\Z \wr \Z$ our result implies that the Hilbert compression exponent of $\Z\wr (\Z\wr\Z)$ is at least 1/4, answering a question posed as to whether it has positive Hilbert compression exponent.