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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.
Closed series - Planning Paper 101 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-06 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-06 (nl),
Other publications - Network industries 2006 (en),
Price regulation has for a long time existed in a limited number of sectors in Belgium. The paper gives an overview of the legislation in this area and looks in particular at the sectors of over-the-counter medicines and old people’s homes. It describes the system and proposes a number of changes to the regulatory framework.
Articles - Working Paper 19-05
Closed series - Planning Paper 100 (fr), (nl),
Closed series - Planning Paper 99 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 19-05 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 16-05 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-05 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-05 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-05 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-05 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-05 (nl),
Closed series - Planning Paper 98 (fr), (nl),
The medium-term outlook for Belgium (cut-off date: April 30) points towards an average GDP growth rate of 2.2% during the 2005-2010 period, which is slightly higher than potential (2.1%). This pace of growth is expected to take place after a slowdown in economic growth in 2005 (1.7%) and a rebound in 2006 (2.6%). In both years Belgian economic growth should be slightly higher than in the euro area. Recent information makes the 2005 growth figure highly uncertain, with a significant downward risk.
Despite moderate wage increases, the average yearly growth rate of private consumption should reach 1.9% during the 2005-2010 period, particularly thanks to the increase in households’ disposable income (stimulated particularly by reductions in personal income tax and the rise in employment). Investment growth should reach 3% on average during the 2005-2010 period, mainly reflecting the increase in business investment but also an acceleration of public investment in 2005 and 2006. Growth in exports should be 5.5% on average and the contribution of net exports to GDP growth is expected to be 0.2%. Limited wage cost increases, lower oil prices as compared to the average level in 2005 and a negative output gap should allow inflation to remain around 1.8% in the medium term.
The development of employment should reflect the favourable macroeconomic context, the limited increases in wage costs and various policy measures. After the net creation of approximately 29,000 and 21,000 jobs in 2004 and 2005 respectively, about 40,000 jobs should be created every year during the 2006-2010 period. Between 2004 and 2010 industrial employment should fall by 51,000 persons and the number of jobs created in market services should exceed 270,000. Nevertheless, in view of the growth in the labour force (mainly in the 50-64 age group) the fall in unemployment will be limited to 50,000. The unemployment rate (broad administrative statistics) is still increasing in 2005 (from 14.4% to 14.6%), but it will subsequently fall to 12.9% in 2010.
Under the assumption of unchanged policy, the public accounts are expected to show a clear deterioration, with a net public sector borrowing requirement appearing in 2005 (0.5% of GDP) and widening to 1.5% of GDP in 2006 before gradually declining to 0.7% of GDP by the end of the projection period. Nevertheless, the total public debt to GDP ratio is still in decline, from 95.8% in 2004 to 82.6% in 2010.
Closed series - Short Term Update 02-05 (en),
The aim of this paper is to analyse the trends between 1991 and 2001 in the world export market shares of the bleu and a sample of other countries including among others the Member States of the European Union (eu). For this purpose, we apply Constant Market Shares Analysis (cmsa) to changes in the world export market shares of those countries for the subperiods 1991/1997 and 1997/2001.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-05 (en),
In 2004, economic growth in Belgium amounted to 2.7% (GDP at constant prices), which is higher than the euro area average due to the strength of Belgian domestic demand. The economic recovery, triggered by an improvement in the international business climate from mid-2003 onwards, resulted in quarter-on-quarter growth rates between 0.7% and 0.8%, but weakened to 0.4% in the last quarter of 2004.
Economic growth should gain momentum during the course of this year, which is mainly due to the quarterly profile of exports. In fact, export growth should temporarily weaken during the first half of this year due to lower foreign demand growth and the appreciation of the euro during the last two quarters of 2004, which hampers competitiveness with respect to the other currency areas. Private con-sumption (+1.8%) should increase at a faster pace than purchasing power (+1.4%) for the third con-secutive year. Stimulated by the ongoing recovery of business profitability, low interest rates and gradually improving demand prospects, real business investment growth should strengthen to 3.3% this year. All in all, GDP growth at constant prices should reach 2.2% in 2005. Inflation should re-main rather stable at 2.0%.
Employment should increase by 34,400 units this year, as compared to 28,600 in 2004. As the labour force should increase at about the same pace in 2005, the unemployment rate should stabilise this year. The employment rate should rise slightly from 61.8% in 2004 to 62.1% in 2005.
Closed series - Short Term Update 01-05 (en),
Following the Lisbon strategy designed to transform the European economy into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society, the Barcelona Summit quantified one of the available instruments to reach this ambitious objective by fixing the amount of resources which have to be devoted to r&d by 2010, at 3% of the European gdp.
What could be the implications of the Barcelona objective in terms of the main economic variables for Belgium and the eu? What are the needs for human capital to reach this objective? How are these needs covered by the current trends in the supply of qualified labour in Belgium? These are the main questions analysed in the present working paper.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-05 (en),
The latest update of the FPB’s medium-term outlook for Belgium shows average GDP growth reaching 2.3% during the 2004-2009 period. This development can be largely accounted for by domestic demand, whereas the role of (net) exports is expected to be more limited. As in 2003, private consumption should evolve in quite a dynamic way during the projection period (1.9% on average), mainly as a result of an expansion of households’ disposable income. At the same time, gross fixed capital formation (and particularly business investment) should recover, with annual growth reaching 3%. The structural loss of export market share should be confirmed with exports increasing by 5.3% a year on average, compared with growth of 6.3% of our potential export markets.
Inflation should remain slightly below 2% in the medium term, mainly thanks to limited wage increases and moderate rises in imported costs. Employment is expected to increase by about 32,000 jobs a year during the 2005-2009 period. This performance can be explained by several factors: a relatively favourable macroeconomic context, limited wage increases, a reduction in working time and various measures taken to promote employment. At the same time, the working population should rise considerably. As a consequence, despite the creation of many jobs, the fall in the unemployment rate should be very limited.
The FPB’s October update of the medium term outlook for Belgium does not yet take into account the measures decided within the framework of the 2005 budget.
Closed series - Short Term Update 04-04 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-04 (fr),
The medium-term outlook for Belgium is pointing towards a GDP growth rate of 2.2% during the 2004-2009 period, which is slightly higher than potential (2.0%). This favourable development is due to both net exports and domestic demand. Private consumption should become more dynamic during the 2005-2009 period, particularly thanks to the increase in households’ disposable income (especially due to tax reforms and increases in employment and social benefits). Investment growth should attain 2.9% during the 2004-2009 period, mainly reflecting the increase in business investment. After ini-tially accelerating in 2004, average export growth should be 5.4% and the contribution of net exports to GDP growth should be 0.2%. Thanks to limited increases in wages and import costs and a negative output gap during the first few years of the projection, the inflation rate will remain below 2% in the medium term.
The development of employment should reflect the favourable macroeconomic context, the limited in-creases in wage costs and various policy measures. After net losses in 2002 and 2003 and the creation of almost 9,000 jobs in 2004, about 30,000 jobs should be created every year during the 2005-2009 period. Industrial employment should fall by 44,000 persons during the 2004-2009 period and the number of jobs created in market services should exceed 200,000. Nevertheless, given the increase in the labour force (mainly in the 50-64 age class) the number of unemployed will barely decrease at all. The unemployment rate (broad administrative statistics) is still increasing in 2004 (from 14.1% to 14.4%), but will subsequently fall to 13.5% in 2009.
The public accounts are expected to show a clear deterioration, with a net public sector borrowing re-quirement appearing in 2004 and widening to 1.4% in 2006 before gradually declining to 0.7% by the end of the projection period.
Closed series - Short Term Update 02-04 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-04 (fr),
The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of information and communications technology (ict) on economic performance at the sectoral level in Belgium over the period 1990-2000. The growth accounting approach used in the framework of the neoclassical growth theory for the study of the sources of economic growth will be adopted here in order to quantify the impact of ict use on output and labour productivity growth. Since annual data on ict capital stock are not readily available, we use data from a number of sources to construct this indicator at the sector level for Belgium over the period 1990-2000. Our findings should indicate (i) to which extent ict contributed to output and labour growth at the sectoral level in Belgium in the 1990s and (ii) whether industries making intensive use of ict performed better then non-intensive ict ones over the same period.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-04 (en),
Closed series - Planning Paper 94 (fr), (nl),
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