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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),
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),
Speeches & presentations - SP130201_01 (en), (en), (en), (en), (en), (en), (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),
Articles - Article 20121127
Closed series - Planning Paper 112 (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),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-12 (fr), (nl),
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),
Other publications - OPCOMP2011_1 (fr), (nl),
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),
This Working Paper deals with the estimation of direct, inter-industry domestic and international R&D stocks for 25 Belgian industries over the period 1995-2007. Two categories of stocks are constructed to estimate potential rent spillovers and knowledge spillovers. Domestic inter-industry and foreign R&D stocks are weighted with Supply and Use tables and bilateral trade data to estimate rent spillovers (through intermediate consumption) and with international patent citations matrices to estimate knowledge spillovers.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-11 (en),
In this Working Paper the impact of potential determinants of total factor productivity, i.e. the part of output that cannot be explained by the quantity of production factors, is estimated for Belgium using industry-level data for the period 1988-2007.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-11 (en),
Offshoring is generally believed to be productivity-enhancing and this belief is underpinned by economic theory. This article contributes to the growing literature that tests empirically whether offshoring does indeed help to improve productivity. Estimating the impact of materials and business services offshoring on productivity growth with industry-level data for Belgium over the period 1995-2004, we investigate this issue separately for manufacturing and market services. The results show that there is no productivity effect of materials offshoring, while business services offshoring leads to productivity gains especially in manufacturing. In addition, we look at the possibility of rent spillovers from offshoring. Productivity gains from offshoring in one industry may feed through to other industries that purchase its output for intermediate use if, due to offshoring, the user value exceeds the price of the output. The lack of evidence of such rent spillovers from either materials or business services offshoring in the data leads us to conclude that firms manage to internalise all efficiency gains from offshoring.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-11 (en),
In this working paper the evolution of expenditures for research and development (R&D) in Belgium, in the period 1995-2007, is compared to the evolution in ten other EU countries. R&D expenditures by companies established in Belgium evolved quite favourably up to 2001 but subsequently not only did R&D intensity in Belgium decrease but the position relative to other countries deteriorated as well. This evolution seems to be due mainly to a decline in the share of a significant number of industries in Belgium in the overall R&D expenditures of the group of countries considered, and less the result of the type of industries in which Belgian companies have specialized.
Working Papers - Working Paper 20-10 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 18-10 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-10 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-10 (nl),
The aim of this paper is to describe product market competition in the Belgian economy for the period 1997-2004 and to illustrate some causality with market regulation. The analysis is held at the industry level, for selected manufacturing and services industries. Emphasis is given to the profit elasticity (PE) measurement of competition (the "Boone" indicator) and the average profitability (AP) indicator (an approximation of the mark-up indicator). We applied the OECD Regimpact indicator as a proxy for regulation. We present some stylized facts, for Belgium in comparison with selected EU countries; and through an econometric exercise we illustrate the potential of regulation as an explanatory variable for competition.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-10 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-10 (fr),
This paper investigates the relationship between the relative positions, in terms of value added and relative prices, of Belgian manufacturing and market services in the European Union over 1970-2005. Relative prices are then broken down into relative unit costs of production factors. The analysis goes further by decomposing relative unit labour cost into relative hourly wages and relative productivity. Finally, relative productivity is broken down into relative capital deepening, relative labour composition effect and relative total factor productivity.
Articles - Article 2009100605
This paper investigates graphically and econometrically the relationship between the relative positions, in terms of value added and relative prices, of Belgian manufacturing and market services in the European Union over 1970-2005. Relative prices are then decomposed into relative unit costs of factors of production. The analysis goes further by replacing relative unit labour cost with relative hourly wages and relative productivity. Finally, relative produc-tivity is replaced with relative capital deepening, relative labour composition effect and relative total factor productivity. All data are coming from the EUKLEMS database, March 2008 release.
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-09 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-09 (fr),
This Working Paper evaluates the performance of the system of innovation in Wallonia for the most recent available period. Like the previous paper, this paper is based on the analysis of indicators reflecting the six main components of a system of innovation: knowledge development, human resources, valorisation of R&D, absorption capacity of innovation, entrepreneurship and innovation financing. A country's performance depends not only on the relative strength of each individual element but also on how effectively the components interact. These six components are evaluated from a European perspective: Wallonia is compared with European countries and European regions with similar socio-economic characteristics.
Articles - Article 2009030202
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