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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.

Documents (374)

2008

  • Wages and employment by level of education and occupation in Belgium 17/12/2008

    Increased international economic integration and skill-biased technological change are often regarded as the main drivers of the rising inequality in wages and employment witnessed in industrialized countries in recent decades as they are believed to emphasize differences between individuals in level of education. However, proponents of a task-based view of technological change and offshoring stress the evolving content of tasks as the major determinant of shifts in labour demand and argue that this does not necessarily imply a clear-cut match between the level of education and job opportunities. Belgian data from the Structure and Distribution of Earnings Survey for the period 1999-2004 suggest that the level of wages is significantly correlated with the level of education but wage growth is not. Occupation seems to explain a statistically significant part of the wage level as well as wage growth of workers. The analysis supports the view that the level of education provides less information than the occupation of workers in explaining changes in wages and employment. Overall, it appears that a policy that simply aims to increase the level of education of the active population is not warranted. In addition to the risk of over-education, such a policy is not likely to alleviate the mismatch which to some extent exists between the competencies required by employers and the competencies offered by workers and the unemployed.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 22-08  Publication(en),

  • Impact of the EU Energy and Climate Package on the Belgian energy system and economy - Study commissioned by the Belgian federal and three regional authorities 15/12/2008

    In order to prepare for the negotiations on the EU Energy and Climate Package, the Federal Planning Bureau was asked by the Belgian federal and regional authorities to conduct a study on the impact of the January 2008 European Commission’s proposal. In the course of this study, various scenarios were run. Next to a baseline, two main alternative scenarios were scrutinised: the 20/20 and 30/20 target scenarios, standing for an EU reduction of respectively 20% and 30% of GHG emissions in the year 2020 compared to the level of 1990 and a 20% mandatory EU share of RES in Gross Final Energy Demand in 2020. The report then includes an analysis of the impact of both scenarios on the Belgian energy system and economy as well as on GHG emissions.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 21-08  Publication(en),

  • Analyse des dépenses et recettes publiques de transport 26/11/2008

    This study presents some of the results of the transport satellite accounts (TSA) published recently (Planning Paper 106) in order to provide a first estimation of expenditure and revenue of the public administrations linked to transport in 1995 and 2000. From this information, the possibility to estimate the net public transfers towards the different mode of transport modes is analysed.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 20-08  Publication(fr),

  • Quantifying environmental leakage for Belgium 30/10/2008

    This paper illustrates the deficiency of the production approach as a tool to measure a country’s responsibility for international environmental impacts. A use approach is presented as a more suitable tool. The difference between the two approaches is determined by a better grasp of international trade, which can lead to environmental leakage when a country specialises in the production of environmentally friendly products and has the environmentally unfriendly products which it consumes produced abroad. We show that in the period 1995-2002 Belgium was on average a provider of air emission intensive products for the rest of the world. Environmental leakage was mostly negative. However, the evolution of the Belgian environmental terms of trade shows that by 2002 its imports had become considerably more air emission intensive with respect to its exports than in 1995. There are indications that this evolution is due to a considerable increase of extra-EU imports of air emission intensive products. This in turn could point to environmentally inspired offshoring. However, the currently available data do not allow us to test this hypothesis.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 19-08  Publication(en),

  • Growth and Productivity in Belgium 29/09/2008

    The objective of the report is to provide an overview of the main drivers of economic growth and the productivity evolution in Belgium, in comparison with the EU and the US, between 1970 and 2005, based on a consistent data set. The growth accounting methodology is applied to explain value added and labour productivity growth for the 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 the capital stock and labour services flows rather than the number of hours worked to measure the contribution of these factors of production to economic and productivity growth. Contributions of the main industries to value added, employment and productivity growth are also estimated.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 17-08  Publication(en),

  • Determinants of innovation in a small open economy: the case of Belgium 29/06/2008

    Using dynamic panel data on 20 Belgian market sectors over 1987-2005, the paper analyses the link between Multifactor Productivity (MFP) growth and three frequently cited determinants: business R&D, labour skills and ICT use. The theoretical framework of the analysis is given by the Aghion-Howitt model which explains the rate of MFP growth by the distance to the world technology frontier.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 11-08  Publication(en), Publication(fr),

  • The PLANET Model: Methodological Report 16/05/2008

    The PLANET model is a model of the Belgian Federal PLANning Bureau that models the relationship between the Economy and Transport. Its aim is to produce: (i) medium- and long-term projections of transport demand in Belg ium, both for passenger and freight transport; (ii) simulations of the effects of transport policy measures; (iii) cost-benefit analyses of transport policy measures. The methodological report describes the main features of the PLANET model.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 10-08  Publication(en),

  • Trade-based measures of offshoring: an overview for Belgium 15/04/2008

    Offshoring has since long been a matter of concern in developed countries and has recently received growing attention in the economic literature. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical review of definitions of offshoring that have been put forward in recent years, thereby updating the definitions in earlier publications of the Federal Planning Bureau. We also take a closer look at how offshoring can be measured. In the absence of individual firm data, we focus on indirect trade-based measures of offshoring, compare them and present results for Belgium that show an upward trend in offshoring.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 09-08  Publication(en),

  • Estimating private health expenditures within a dynamic consumption allocation model 18/02/2008

    This paper presents a model of Belgian household consumption, with a focus on private health expenditures. To do so, 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 were expected to capture shifts in consumption patterns related to the changing age composition of the population. The results confirm the expected effects: the ageing of the population is likely to increase the share of private health expenditures (and consumer durables) in the household budget over the coming decades.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 04-08  Publication(en),

  • Long-term population projections in Europe: How they influence policies and accelerate reforms 16/01/2008

    The long-term demographic projections have progressively raised concerns about the consequences of ageing population. To better understand those changes and measure their size,
    projections of social expenditure have been built and progressively refined. Confronted with a large budgetary cost of ageing in the long run, the Government’s alternative is: solve the problem
    when it comes up or try to anticipate the negative results and prevent them. Three ways are to be considered that are not mutually incompatible: reforming the social system in order to reduce the cost for the present and future generations, increasing the tax or contribution receipts by pushing up employment rates and the trend growth of GDP and saving now in the public sector to cover the increase of the future expenditure. The paper shows that, since the end of the nineties, a broad movement of reforms has taken place in the EU which involves this three-pronged strategy.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 02-08  Publication(en),

2007

  • Qualitative Employment Multipliers for Belgium, Results for 2000 and 2002 03/12/2007

    The paper describes how an input-output table can be linked to detailed employment data in order to provide qualitative employment multipliers. Qualitative employment multipliers specify the direct and indirect labour use by final demand products of worker types differentiated by gender, age class, professional status, educational attainment level, labour regime or a combination of these characteristics.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 15-07  Publication(en),

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