News
Press releases
Events
The last five databases
Publications
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.
Within the Belgian National Accounts Institute, the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) has been assigned responsibility for the environmental satellite accounts. One of these accounts is the National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts for Air pollution (NAMEA Air). The NAMEA Air for Belgium currently contains data on greenhouse gas emissions, acidifying emissions, photochemical emissions, emissions of fine dust particles and emissions of lead for 1990 and for the period 1994-2002. The air pollutant that has received the most attention over the last decade is, without any doubt, carbon dioxide, the emissions of which are closely linked to energy use. This special topic investigates the driving forces behind the changes in CO2 emissions by the Belgian industries by means of decomposition analysis. Emissions by households are thus not considered. The industries were responsible for the largest part of Belgian CO2 emissions, more specifically 76%, in 2002. In that year, CO2 emissions represented 87% of total greenhouse gas emissions covered by the Kyoto protocol.
Articles - Article 2006051901
After the compromise that was reached at the European Council of December 2005, the European Parliament finally approved, on 17 May 2006, the European budget for the next seven years (the Financial Perspective 2007-2013).
Articles - Working Paper 03-06
This Working Paper presents the methodology and results of a stochastic simulation evaluation of the risks related to the medium-term world economic outlook produced using the Federal Planning Bureau’s NIME model in January 2006. The results include confidence intervals around a baseline projection for the euro area, the United States and Japan, as well as probability estimates for specific occurrences.
Articles - Working Paper 02-06
The medium-term outlook for Belgium points towards an average GDP growth rate of 2.2% during the 2006-2011 period, which is slightly higher than potential (2.0%). This pace of growth should follow a slowdown in economic growth in 2005 (1.5%) and a rebound in 2006 (2.4%). Economic growth in Belgium should remain slightly higher than in the euro area, on average.
Despite moderate wage increases, the average yearly growth rate for private consumption should reach 1.8% during the 2006-2011 period, in particular because of the increase in household disposable income (stimulated especially by reductions in personal income tax and increases in employment and social benefits). Investment growth should reach 2.5% during the 2006-2011 period, mainly reflecting the path of business investment growth, but also an acceleration in public investment at the end of the projection period. Growth in exports should be 5.4% on average and the contribution of net exports to GDP growth is expected to be 0.3%-points. The external surplus, which was strongly reduced between 2002 and 2005, should increase again after 2007 and attain 3.2% of GDP in 2011 (partly as a result of the improvement of the terms of trade). Limited increases in wage costs, the decline in oil prices after 2007 and a negative output gap until the end of the projection period, should allow the inflation rate to remain below 2% in the medium term.
The expected evolution of employment reflects a favourable macroeconomic context, a limited increase in wage costs and various policy measures. After the net creation of approximately 39,000 and 41,000 jobs in 2005 and 2006 respectively, about 35,000 jobs should be created every year during the 2007-2011 period. Between 2005 and 2011, industrial employment should fall by 30,000 persons, but the number of jobs created in market services should exceed 250,000. Nevertheless, in view of the strong increase in the labour force (mainly in the 50-64 age class) the fall in unemployment will be limited to 38,000 persons. The unemployment rate (broad administrative statistics) should fall from 14.3% in 2005 to 13.1% in 2011.
Under the assumption of constant policy, public accounts are expected to deteriorate markedly, with a net public financing requirement of 0.3% of GDP appearing in 2006, widening to 1.2% in 2007, before gradually falling to 0.3% by the end of the projection period. Nevertheless, the total public debt to GDP ratio is still expected to decline from 93.9% in 2005 to 78.0% in 2011.
Closed series - Short Term Update 02-06 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2006-2011 (fr), (nl),
Other publications - OPVERG200601 - Report (fr), (nl),
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),
Other publications - Network industries 2006 (en),
Closed series - Short Term Update 01-06 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2006 C (fr), (nl),
This working paper assesses the impact of the oil price shock on the Belgian economy and tries to explain why the impact has been very limited when compared to the oil price shocks in the seventies.
Articles - Working Paper 01-06
Price regulation has for a long time existed in a limited number of sectors in Belgium. The paper gives an overview of the legislation in this area and looks in particular at the sectors of over-the-counter medicines and old people’s homes. It describes the system and proposes a number of changes to the regulatory framework.
Articles - Working Paper 19-05
The January 2006 issue of the NIME Economic Outlook (NEO) for the World Economy presents a 2006-2012 macroeconomic outlook for the major areas of the world. The outlook was produced using NIME, the Federal Planning Bureau’s macroeconometric world model. The January 2006 issue also features an assessment of the response of the euro area economy to a shift away from the direct taxation of labour towards the indirect taxation of final demand.
Articles - NIME 2006 - JAN
Closed series - Planning Paper 100 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - NEO 01-06 (en),
Closed series - Planning Paper 99 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-06 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 19-05 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 18-05 (fr),
Over the 1995-2004 period, the evolution of stock market indices in the United States and Europe exhibited a distinct boom-and-bust pattern, rising dramatically during the second half of the 1990s and falling sharply at the turn of the century. These changes in asset prices affected household wealth and the financing cost of investments, so that the period of rising asset prices was also characterised by strong economic growth, while the period of falling asset prices saw weaker growth. As equity markets were largely driven by "irrational exuberance" in the second half of the 1990s, it is sometimes argued that, in order to foster a more balanced growth path, the monetary authorities in the United States and the euro area should have targeted changes in a price index which not only includes contemporaneous consumer prices but also asset prices.
In this Working Paper we assess the worldwide macroeconomic implications of an interest rate rule whereby the major central banks of the world target not only changes in the traditional consumer price index but also changes in asset prices. We do this by simulating the nime model over the 1995-2004 period with an interest rate rule similar to the well-known Taylor rule, but augmented for changes in asset prices.
Working Papers - Working Paper 17-05 (en),
Other publications - Euren Winter Report (en),
Closed series - Short Term Update 04-05 (en),
Many questions about the directions in which our societies develop require answers from the authorities. Guiding this development requires an overall vision of the situation, which can be obtained by systematically organising the available social, environmental, economic and political information. The third Belgian Federal Report on Sustainable Development proposes such a comprehensive systemic model for describing and analysing how a given society develops.
Articles - Sust dev Report 2002
Other publications - Sustainable development Report 2000-2004 - Indic (fr), (nl),
Reports - Sustainable development Report 2000-2004 - Folder (de), (en), (fr), (nl),