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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.
Within the context of the economic stimulus plan adopted at the end of 2012, the government set up a group of experts from the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB), the High Council for Employment (HCE), the Directorate General Statistics and Economic Information (DGSEI), the Central Economic Council (CEC) and Eurostat. The group was charged with the following missions:
To complete these missions, the group of experts has drawn up this two-part report. The first part (A) deals with productivity and labour costs and the second part (B) discusses training efforts by enterprises.
Other publications - GECE_EGCW_1301 (mix),
The present document is the second biannual progress report in which the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) gives an account of the monitoring of the economic stimulus strategy announced by the Federal government in the summer of 2012.
It offers an overview of the measures to follow up and reviews the progress of their implementation (situation on 30 June 2013). In addition, the report attempts to provide a first analysis of those measures. Through a number of selected indicators, it presents a numerical benchmark before implementation or, when possible, a first ex ante impact assessment.
Other publications - OPREP201302 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2013-2014 (June)
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2013-2018 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2013 (fr), (nl),
In July 2012, the federal government announced its economic stimulus strategy. The key objectives of the strategy include supporting the purchasing power of households, enhancing the economy’s competitiveness and creating more high-quality jobs.
The stimulus strategy introduced a follow-up and monitoring procedure which commissions the Federal Planning Bureau to report the government every six months on the procedure’s evolution and the efficiency of the measures taken in view of the strategy’s objectives. This first monitoring report presents the monitoring procedure, gives an overview of the measures to follow up (the scope) and reviews the progress of implementation of the measures (situation on 31 January 2013).
Reports - OPREP201301 (fr), (nl),
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),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2012 - 2013 (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),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2012-2017 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2012 (fr), (nl),
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),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2011-2012 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2011-2016 (fr), (nl),
Other publications - OPBFPBNB_11_01 (fr), (nl),
In the national accounts labour inputs are collected by industry. Homogenising means transforming labour inputs by industry into labour inputs by product. This homogenisation is done using mathematical techniques. The paper compares the results for two wellknown techniques (product technology and industry technology) and discusses the effects of homogenisation on Belgian data for the years 2000 and 2005. Labour inputs are detailed by gender and education level. An additional distinction is made between employees and self-employed. The paper proposes a solution for the negatives problem that arises when applying the product technology model in the case of self-employed workers. It also assesses the plausibility of results by showing the effects of homogenising on wage costs and value added per head as well as on the ranking of industries by education level. The product and the industry technology model yield significantly different results, most particularly for the employment use of wholesale and retail trade. The results of the product technology model are judged to be most plausible.
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-11 (en),
Reports - RIS_LAS_2001_01 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2011 (fr), (nl),
This study aims to analyse the effects of the decentralization level of collective wage bargaining on the wage level and the wage dispersion in Belgium. For this purpose, we have constructed a composite indicator of collective bargaining decentralization, based on variables that determine collective bargaining. Our results indicate the presence of a significant wage bonus and wider wage disparity in industries where collective bargaining is decentralized. Furthermore, we compare these results with those that use as an indicator of bargaining decentralization, the presence of collective agreements at company level, a commonly used indicator in the literature. We notice that this latter indicator seems to underestimate the degree of bargaining decentralization and thus also its effects on the wage structure. One can explains this result by the fact that in Belgium, besides firm collective agreements, the bargaining system also provides mechanisms that enable firms to distance themselves from collective agreements set at industry level.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-11 (fr),
This Working Paper gives an overall picture of the horeca industry in Belgium. The study focuses in particular on aspects of business demography, the importance of the sector for the Belgian economy, its development since the mid-nineties and the financial health of horeca companies. Since the provision of horeca services is a very labour-intensive activity, special attention is paid to employment features.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-11 (mix),
Working Papers - Working Paper 19-10 (fr),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2010-2015 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2010-2011 (2) (fr), (nl),
This study attempts to measure the impact of industry-level wage bargaining on individual wages in Belgium. The results indicate that industry wage bargaining increases decided collectively at the industry level are, on average, fully passed on to actual wages. Moreover, industry wage bargaining seems to coexist along with a wage drift affected by company size, the economic performance of the industry and labour market tensions.
Articles - Article 2009122103
This study is devoted to the analysis of the main effects on the Belgian economy, for the period 2010-2020, of various forms of tax-shifting aimed at increasing taxes on energy and, simultaneously, decreasing other forms of taxation. All these variants have been simulated using the FPB’s medium-term model for Belgian economy (HERMES).
Articles - Article 2009122102
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