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To promote transparency and provide information, the Federal Planning Bureau regularly publishes the methods and results of its works. The publications are organised in different series, such as Outlooks, Working Papers and Planning Papers. Some reports can be consulted here, along with the Short Term Update newsletters that were published until 2015. You can search our publications by theme, publication type, author and year.
In order to improve our understanding of the divergent evolutions that recently emerged between European countries in terms of labour productivity, this paper compares the labour productivity growth of three small open European countries: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. The analysis focuses on market services as they are the most important single factor that is responsible for the divergences. The comparison shows that, while Austria and Belgium recorded a decrease in their productivity growth between 1995 and 2004, the Netherlands followed the American pattern and has recorded an increase in their growth rate since 1995. The decomposition of labour productivity growth makes it possible to underline the important role played by total factor productivity (TFP) in the Dutch upsurge in productivity growth. The breakdown of the data by industry shows the importance of the Distribution sector in the Dutch performance. The growth of TFP observed in the Distribution sector is then linked to different potential determinants: ICT accumulation and use, labour qualifications, R&D and innovation and regulations.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-07 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-07 (nl),
The distinction between the young and the elderly within low and high wage earning employment in HERMES, the FPB's medium-term macroeconomic model, enables the assessment of both age and wage related labour cost reducing policies. The age structure of salaried employment in each branch of activity is embedded in a three-stage mechanism. First, aggregate demand and the relative cost of labour to capital determine salaried employment. Next, relative wages allocate employment among three major labour categories: low-paid jobs, high-paid jobs and special-employment programmes. Finally, within each labour category relative wages allocate employment between the young (aged less than fifty) and the elderly (aged fifty or more).
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-07 (en),
Every three years, each EU member state is required to set out its political priorities related to economic growth and job creation in a so-called National Reform Programme ( NRP ). Gauged by the latest medium-term economic outlook produced by the Federal Planning Bureau, compliance with the main macroeconomic objectives contained in the Belgian NRP will still require sizable efforts, especially regarding the labour market. Furthermore, our analysis shows that reducing social security contributions in order to lower the tax wedge on labour as foreseen in the NRP , is efficient in increasing the employment rate, especially when targeted at low wage earners, but also that such policies have a negative effect on the objectives related to public finances and CO 2 emissions.
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-07 (fr),
This working paper gives an overview of the Modtrim team’s recent research in the field of Belgian exports and export markets. In the first chapter a new leading indicator is introduced as a supplementary tool to determine a growth profile for Belgium’s potential export markets in the first quarters of the forecasting period. In the second chapter, an attempt is made to improve forecasts of Belgium’s exports by breaking down the model equation into a goods and a services component. Finally, the third chapter reveals that (a lack of) competitiveness is probably not the only reason for the losses of export market share in Belgium and in some of its main trading partners in the past 25 years.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-07 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-07 (fr), (nl),
The Federal Planning Bureau has been publishing medium-term macroeconomic projections for the Belgian economy since the beginning of the eighties. In this working paper past projection errors are scrutinised to give users a broad idea of the uncertainties surrounding these projections. The analysis reveals that projections for most of the macro-economic variables show no statistically significant bias with the notable exception of the evolution of exports and labour productivity which was clearly overestimated, while labour force growth was systematically underestimated. Examination of the role played by the main exogenous variables shows the importance of potential export markets in explaining projection errors on GDP and components. However, losses in export market shares were underestimated in most economic outlooks. Concerning the labour force, the origin of the projection error changed over time: attributable almost exclusively to errors in the average participation rate at the beginning of the sample, from 1997 onwards the relative contribution of errors on working-age population increased gradually.
Working Papers - Working paper 08-07 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-07 (fr), (nl),
This paper provides a rough estimate for Belgium of the proportion of service jobs at risk of being offshored in the wake of ICT-developments, and compares the results for Belgium with results for the EU15 and the US. Occupational employment data from the Labour Force Survey are used to produce this estimate by identifying service jobs that could possibly be offshored due to ICT-enabled tradability. The results show that the share of such jobs is lower for Belgium than for the EU15 or the US, but that there is an upward trend in this share over the period 1993 to 2005. Industry-level data and a shift-and-share analysis are used to explain the results.
Working Papers - Working paper 06-07 (en),
The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the main drivers of economic growth and productivity evolution in Belgium between 1970 and 2004, based on a consistent data set. The growth accounting methodology is applied to explain value added and labour productivity growth for total economy, manufacturing and market services. This decomposition exercise diverges from what has been applied in Belgium up to now, as it uses capital services flows rather than capital stock to measure the contribution of capital factor to production growth. Contributions of the main industries to value added, employment and productivitygrowth are also estimated.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-07 (en),
This paper presents the methodology for the compilation of a time series of supply and use tables for Belgium in current and constant prices for the period 1995-2002. These data have been produced at the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau within the framework of the EUKLEMS project and constitute an input for the project’s productivity database. The compilation of the time series was based on national accounts data and existing supply and use tables. The methodology consisted in splitting several industries and products, adapting existing data to the latest national accounts revisions, estimating missing tables as well as deflating current price supply and use tables.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-07 (en),
This Working Paper presents the different methodologies currently used to construct a volume index of capital services and analyzes the effects of methodological changes on capital services and total factor productivity estimates for Belgium over the period 1970-2004. The measurement of capital services is realized in two steps. First, productive capital stocks have to be estimated for each type of asset. Two methodologies are generally used: the geometric and the hyperbolic profile. Secondly, these stocks are aggregated, using the user costs of capital (exante or ex-post approach) as weights to derive an overall index. For the economy as a whole and the entire period, under an ex-post approach, the volume indices of capital services estimated with a hyperbolic age-efficiency profile grow at a higher rate than the indices estimated with a geometric profile. This general conclusion is, however, not observed in every sector. Under an ex-ante approach, the different volume indices are quite similar for the whole economy, even if the indices grow generally at a slightly higher rate in the case of a geometric pattern. A higher growth rate of the volume indices generates a higher capital contribution and, consequently, a lower TFP contribution. Over long periods of time, the different TFP estimates are relatively similar. Over shorter periods, the different methodologies generate more significant variations in the TFP contribution.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-07 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-07 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-07 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-06 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-06 (nl),
In network industries the market reform that is being pursued by national and supranational authorities should lead to an improvement of efficiency, which spills over into a beneficial macroeconomic impact. This paper presents two alternative simulations of the potential impact in Belgium. These simulations give very different outcomes, but are still complementary. A macroeconometric approach seems to be more realistic in the short and mid term because it has been built up from observed behavioural relationships. A general-equilibrium approach gives rise to drawing some lessons about the conditions that make the impact more pronounced in the long term.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-06 (en),
This working paper analyses public financing in two countries that have already reached the Barcelona goal (R&D expenditure on GDP at least equal to 3%), Finland and Sweden, and compares it with the situation in Belgium. This comparison covers not only the quantitative aspects but also the organisational dimension of the public support for innovation.
Working Papers - Working paper 09-06 (mix),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-06 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-06 (en), (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-06 (nl),
The Belgian Study Group on Ageing of the High Council of Finance, in its Annual Report, publishes the results of research on the budgetary and social effects of ageing. In this context, the Federal Planning Bureau, in its capacity as secretariat and main research body of the Committee, has in recent years been stepping up its efforts to deve lop models based on socioeconomic micro data. The results of one of these models, de signed to make short-term projections of poverty indicators, are presented in this paper.
Working Papers - Working paper 05-06 (en),
This paper describes the operating mode of the two existing Belgian fiscal councils as well as their role in the budgetary planning process. These institutions, created or reformed in depth in a context of large public deficits and increasing public debt-to-GDP ratios coupled with the regionalization of the Belgian state, are the result of a maturing process. The National Accounts Institute covers the positive side of the budgetary process, while the High Council of Finance deals with the normative side. Concerning the former domain, the creation of an independent institution to provide unbiased forecasts undeniably contributed to the consolidation of public finances in Belgium. In the context of the revised Stability and Growth Pact, lessons drawn from the Belgian experience can certainly be useful for other Member States willing to improve their fiscal institutional settings. Our chief recommendations for making the budgetary process successful are: institutions dealing with positive economics should enjoy a fully independent status but remain public; positive and normative issues should be completely separated from an institutional point of view; and responsibility should be shared between several strong independent institutions so as to minimize political pressure.
Working Papers - Working paper 04-06 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-06 (mix),
In this Working Paper, we describe how we used stochastic simulation to evaluate the risks surrounding the January 2006 nime Economic Outlook (neo) for the world economy. We summarise the main results by showing confidence intervals around the baseline projection as well as probabilities that certain events will occur. The results presented in this Working Paper are of an illustrative nature and do not constitute an update of the January 2006 nime Economic Outlook.
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-06 (en),
Federal Planning Bureau
