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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.
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 (en),
Two Working Papers on the macroeconomic impact of network industry reform have been published. The first is a detailed report in Dutch, the second a summary paper in English. The analysis builds on a simulation by FPB’s macroeconometric model HERMES, and a simulation by IMF’s general equilibrium model GEM. Although both simulations were based on the same exogenous input, they gave significantly different outcomes. This sheds light on the applicability of different modelling approaches to an issue at hand.
Articles - Working Paper 08-06 / 10-06
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),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-06 (nl),
Other publications - Network industries 2006 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-05 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-05 (nl),
Closed series - Planning Paper 98 (fr), (nl),
Both confidence indicators and some hard data now suggest that economic activity in the euro area should register a moderate recovery during the last part of 2003. Even if risks are still present, they are more balanced than a few months ago.
During the last few months, confidence is rising again in Belgium. GDP growth is forecast to pick up slightly in the second half of the year, and amount to 0.9% in 2003. With a far less dynamic pace than was seen during the previous cyclical recoveries in 1996 and 1999, annual average GDP growth should amount to 1.8% next year.
This year, as a result of the stronger euro and the weakness of the euro area economy, net exports should make a very negative contribution towards economic growth (-0.9%). Real GDP growth should be exclusively driven by domestic demand (1.8%) as a result of the cutback in personal income tax rates and the improvement of business profitability. Next year, domestic demand should grow at the same pace as this year, but GDP growth should be more balanced.
A gradual improvement in domestic employment is not expected to take place until the last quarter of 2003. In response to this slowly improving labour market situation in 2004, the household savings rate should not begin to decrease until the second half of 2004. Next year, CPI inflation should be by 1.4%, as compared with 1.6% this year. This fall is inspired by the past appreciation of the euro and the moderate development of unit labour costs.
Closed series - Short Term Update 03-03 (en),
Network industries are industries whose activity involves conveying people, products or information from one place to the other via some kind of physical network. They include transport networks, information networks and utility networks. Network industries basically consist of three types of activity: upstream activities involving the production of core products such as equipment and means of transport; infrastructure activities involving the construction, maintenance and operation of the physical network; downstream activities involving the delivery of network services to final consumers. Network industries have specific characteristics from an economic point of view. Three of these are particularly notable, the last one also from a social perspective.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-03 (en),
The aim of this working paper is to carry out a descriptive analysis of the geographical concentration of the manufacturing sector in Belgium, from which geographical agglomeration of sectors of activity is analyzed at a fine industrial level, i.e. NACEBEL 4-digit industries.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-02 (en),
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