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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 this working paper, the employment effect triggered by a transition towards an all renewable energy system in Belgium by 2050 is scrutinized. The job impact is estimated up until the year 2030. Using a labour intensity methodology, net job gains are to be expected in each renewable trajectory for any given year. A distinction is made between construction, installation and manufacturing (CIM) and operations, maintenance and fuel processing (O&M) jobs, with the maximum amount of CIM jobs created over the reference scenario exceeding the amount of O&M jobs. This points to the fact that renewable energy sources tend to have a higher construction and installation component in employment than fossil fuels. These installation jobs, along with numerous other job types (e.g. monitoring, planning, certifying), are bound to be and remain domestic. A sensitivity analysis on the effect of applying a decreasing employment multiplier over time is modeled, accompanied by an enumeration of arguments pro and contra using this type of multiplier. All through the paper, a number of reflections are brought to the fore that may nuance the obtained figures and effects. In order for the jobs to materialize, targeted educations, preferably in close collaboration with industry, technical schooling and interest in science are crucial. Enabling policies and measures within a solid, transparent policy framework should accompany the whole process. In this regard, some policy domains and actions are described that could prove useful in tapping the vast job potential.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-13 (en),
The analysis presented in this Working Paper is based on the scenarios of the draft Prospective Study for Electricity (PSE2) elaborated by the Directorate General for Energy of the FPS Economy, S.M.E.s, Self-employed and Energy in collaboration with the Federal Planning Bureau. The question examined in this analysis is whether the total generation capacity calculated in the PSE2 is compatible with the results of an adequacy assessment following ENTSO-E’s methodology (ENTSO-E is the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity).
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-13 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-13 (nl),
Since the mid-90’s, production-related air emissions in Belgian manufacturing have been reduced substantially and it can be shown that the pace of the reduction has been fastest for domestic intermediates. It is widely debated whether offshoring has played a role in this reduction by replacing domestic intermediates by imported intermediates. This paper develops a decomposition analysis to measure the contribution of offshoring – the share of imported intermediates in total intermediates – to the fall in air emission intensities for domestic intermediates. This decomposition analysis reveals that 27% of the fall in the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions, 20% of the fall in the intensity of acidifying emissions and 20% of the fall in the intensity of tropospheric precursor emissions in Belgian manufacturing between 1995 and 2007 can be attributed to offshoring.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-13 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-13 (mix),
While rising health care expenditures as a percentage of national income is a well-known and widely documented feature across the industrialized world, it has proved difficult to quantify the effects of the underlying cost drivers. The main difficulty is to find suitable proxies to measure medical technological innovation, which is believed to be a major determinant of steadily increasing health spending. This paper’s main contribution is the use of data on approved medical devices and drugs to proxy for medical technological progress. The effects of these variables on total real per capita health spending are estimated using a panel model for 18 OECD countries covering the period 1981-2009. The results confirm the substantial cost-increasing effect of medical technology, which may account for at least 50% of the explained historical growth of spending. Excluding the approval variables causes a significant upward bias of the estimated income elasticity of health spending and negatively affects some model specification tests. Despite the overall net positive effect of technology, the effect of two subgroups of approvals on expenditure is significantly negative. These subgroups can be thought of as representing ‘incremental medical innovation’, while the positive effects are related to radically innovative pharmaceutical products and devices. The results are consistent with those reported in other studies which suggest that some new products, despite their high price when they are introduced, can ultimately save money by reducing spending on other medical interventions.
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-13 (en),
This paper presents the results of an initial evaluation of federal fiscal incentives in support of Research and Development (R&D) by companies in Belgium. The impact of regional subsidies and the partial exemption from advance payment for R&D personnel is estimated for the period 2001-2009. The results show that the existing measures of public support have stimulated companies to carry out additional R&D activities.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-13 (en),
This paper presents an allocation model of Belgian household consumption over 23 categories of goods and services. We have formulated and estimated an extension of the classic Almost Ideal Demand System. The original model has been modified by introducing a dynamic adjustment mechanism and by the inclusion of demographic variables. These capture shifts in consumption patterns related to the changing age composition of the population. The paper is an extension of earlier work (Willemé, 2008), in particular with respect to the number and composition of the consumption categories considered.
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-12 (en),
Belgium is characterised by one of the lowest employment rates of elderly workers in the European Union. Since 1997, attempts have been made to discourage elderly workers from leaving the labour market before the age of 65. In particular, two measures aimed at reducing early retirement have been introduced. The first extends the number of career years required to enter early retirement. The second, called "pension bonus", financially stimulates elderly workers to pursue employment after the age of 62. This paper provides an ex-post evaluation of the impact of these two measures on the probability of remaining employed a year later using a difference-in-differences strategy. Our data consists of individual longitudinal employment data covering the period 2000-2009. Using panel data logit models, we find first that the extension of the career length requirement had a significant impact on the probability of staying employed a year later for blue collar and low income white collar male workers aged 60-61 compared to those aged 62-64 during the period 2000-2006. Our second exercise proceeds to estimate the impact of the "pension bonus" during the period 2004-2009, in the presence of the extension of the career length requirement. Comparing the two exercises allows us to conclude that the "pension bonus" had, if any, a very limited impact on the probability of staying employed a year later for male workers aged 62-64 compared to those aged 60-61.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-12 (en),
Food prices in Belgium are higher and rise faster than in its neighbouring countries. This can be verified from Eurostat databases, and has been noticed as part of the European Semesters. During the past few years, the phenomenon of price differntials has been studied at the Belgian and the international level. From these studies can be deduced that the causes are manifold, but that there are also factors that work out favourably in Belgium. Four factors that seem to be outstanding in Belgium: the small economic-geographic scale in combination with the bilingualism, wholesale prices, labour cost and the strategy of certain store chains.
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-12 (en), (nl),
Since 1994, the Federal Planning Bureau is responsible for drawing up the five-year input-output tables for Belgium. These tables are a unique tool for analysing the interdependences between the branches of the Belgian economy. When integrated in an input-output model, they provide rapidly different synthetic measures of the interdependences. The WP presents two classic applications of the IO models : multipliers and linkage measures.
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-12 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-12 (fr), (nl),
The working paper compares the financial structure of non-financial companies by branch between 2007 and 2010. In particular, the analysis focuses on the financial fragility of branches. It also tries to determine whether the problems faced by entreprises during the 2008-2010 period can partly be explained by the financial structure of those entreprises in 2007.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-12 (nl),
This Working Paper describes the process of the participatory foresight exercise "Strategic Long Term Vision for Sustainable Development" and summarizes its results. It gathers the different documents of this exercise together and gives some concluding remarks on the process. This exercise was organized by the Task Force on Sustainable Development of the Federal Planning Bureau between September 2011 and February 2012, with a panel of experts brought together with this aim.
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-12 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-12 (fr), (nl),
A major concern regarding the consequences of offshoring is about the labour market position of low-skilled workers. This paper provides evidence for Belgium that offshoring has had a negative impact on the employment share of low-skilled workers in the manufacturing sector between 1995 and 2007. The main contribution to the fall in the low-skilled employment share came from materials offshoring to Central and Eastern Europe (21%), followed by business services offshoring (8%). In manufacturing industries with a higher ICT capital intensity the impact of offshoring is smaller. For market services industries, no robust conclusions regarding the impact of offshoring on low-skilled employment could be drawn.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-12 (en),
Users of Supply and Use Tables (SUT) and Input-Output Tables (IOT) compiled in different national accounts (NA) vintages face a problem of consistency of their data due to revisions in the NA. This paper describes the methodology that has been followed to compile a consistent time series of Belgian SUT and IOT for the period 1995-2007, in line with the NA published in November 2010.
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-12 (en),
This Working Paper discusses the elasticity and the progressivity of personal income tax. Both concepts deal with the same object but from a different perspective: elasticity has a temporal angle, whereas progressivity has a cross-sectional angle. Progressivity is here estimated based on the distribution statistics of taxable income and taxes. In addition, a method is introduced to assess the negative relationship between progressivity and income growth. In retrospect, that relationship contributes to explain the evolution of progressivity during the past decades. Looking ahead, it can be used to project – under an unchanged policies assumption – an evolution of elasticity different from the constant elasticity hypothesis, typical of short- and medium-term models, and from the unitary elasticity hypothesis, typical of long-term models. In this context, the impact of the larger share of pensions in the tax base on progressivity is taken into account. This Working Paper also discusses the regionalization of personal income tax approved within the framework of the Institutional Agreement for the sixth Reform of the State of 2011. More specifically, it demonstrates how the treatment of elements from the tax system with a fixed dimension (zero tax bracket, tax relief) and elements with a progressive dimension (income scale) influences the specific elasticity of the regional and the federal tax shares in personal income tax.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-12 (fr), (nl),
The Federal Planning Bureau has a long tradition in providing long-term projections focused on the evolution of social expenditure within an overall framework of public finance, using the MALTESE system of models. This outlook is based on different scenarios: demographic, socio-economic, macroeconomic and welfare adjustment. The purpose of this publication is to describe the methodology for the construction of the socio-economic and macroeconomic scenarios and to illustrate it by presenting the main results from the 2011 projection for the Annual Report of the Study Group on Ageing.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-12 (en),
This working paper analyses the performances of the Walloon innovation system in 2010. It concentrates on the six dimensions of the innovation system: knowledge development, human resources, R&D valorisation, innovation absorption capacity, entrepreneurial skills and financing capacity. These pillars are assessed by comparing the Walloon performances with those of European countries and regions with a similar industrial heritage. The analysis underlines the good performances of the mobilisation of financial resources in favour of R&D activities but also a potential problem in terms of human resources available for these activities. Maintaining a sufficient flow of competence by new science graduates and engineers and by the implementation of lifelong learning remains the key challenge in the years to come.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-12 (fr),
The Federal Planning Bureau is responsible, within the National Accounts Institute, for producing the macroeconomic forecasts that are used to set up the federal government budget. This working paper presents an update of the ex post assessment of the quality of these forecasts. Compared to the previous working papers devoted to this topic, the analysis is extended in several ways. Firstly, the number of variables examined is markedly increased, as is the number of statistical tests. Secondly, an evaluation of the quality of the quarterly forecasts is presented for the first time. In addition, this information is used to calculate the probability distribution of these forecasts and to construct a so‐called "fan chart".
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-12 (en),
The 1996 Act establishes a preventive wage norm, based on the expected evolution of the labour costs in three reference countries, namely France, Germany and the Netherlands. It refers for those three countries to forecasts drawn up by the OECD. In its "Economic Outlook", the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) analyses in the chapter on the labour market, particularly since the 2007 edition, the monitoring of the “wage norm”. This analysis revealed the existence of different concepts of wage costs. This note aims to clarify and explain these concepts as well as the wage developments in these different meanings. It also seeks to raise questions related to these concepts
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-12 (fr),
Competition is a complex and hard-to-measure phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is a central concept in the economy and should be adjusted in the event that its course appears to be problematic. This study aims at grasping the intensity and the evolution of competition in Belgium in relation to other EU Member States and is based on eight benchmarks, each of which measures one specific feature of competition. Approximately half of those benchmarks have evolved favourably over the past decade. That was also the case for other member states, as a result of which Belgium’s relative position in terms of competition did not improve. For Belgium, two crucial benchmarks displayed an unfavourable evolution: prices, which strongly increased with regard to other Member States, and, in their wake, price/cost margins.
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-11 (nl),
This paper seeks to extend the PLANET model to allow for an endogenous influence of transport sector outcomes on the economy. To this end, we embed the PLANET data on freight and household transport for 2003 into a static CGE model of the Belgian economy. Households use transport for commuting and leisure transport, while production sectors use freight as an input. We allow for important feedback effects on generalized transport costs through congestion. To illustrate the model, we contrast the effects of a kilometre charge on freight only and a charge that targets household transport as well.
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-11 (en),
In this Working Paper the growth in industry-level total factor productivity, i.e. the part of output growth that cannot be accounted for by growth in the production factors, is decomposed using Belgian firm-level data for the period 2000-2008. Decomposition permits to assess to what extent productivity growth in a given industry results from changes in firm-level productivity, from reallocation of market shares between existing firms or from firm entry and exit.
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-11 (en),
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