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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.
Since the mid-90’s, production-related air emissions in Belgian manufacturing have been reduced substantially and it can be shown that the pace of the reduction has been fastest for domestic intermediates. It is widely debated whether offshoring has played a role in this reduction by replacing domestic intermediates by imported intermediates. This paper develops a decomposition analysis to measure the contribution of offshoring – the share of imported intermediates in total intermediates – to the fall in air emission intensities for domestic intermediates. This decomposition analysis reveals that 27% of the fall in the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions, 20% of the fall in the intensity of acidifying emissions and 20% of the fall in the intensity of tropospheric precursor emissions in Belgian manufacturing between 1995 and 2007 can be attributed to offshoring.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-13 (en),
Since 1994, the Federal Planning Bureau is responsible for drawing up the five-year input-output tables for Belgium. These tables are a unique tool for analysing the interdependences between the branches of the Belgian economy. When integrated in an input-output model, they provide rapidly different synthetic measures of the interdependences. The WP presents two classic applications of the IO models : multipliers and linkage measures.
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-12 (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),
Users of Supply and Use Tables (SUT) and Input-Output Tables (IOT) compiled in different national accounts (NA) vintages face a problem of consistency of their data due to revisions in the NA. This paper describes the methodology that has been followed to compile a consistent time series of Belgian SUT and IOT for the period 1995-2007, in line with the NA published in November 2010.
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-12 (en),
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),
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),
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),
This paper shows the evolution of production, domestic demand and imports and exports of alcoholic beverages between 1995 and 2009. These variables are given for beer, malt and distilled and non-distilled alcoholic beverages as well as some non-alcoholic beverages. The paper shows the evolution of production, value added, investment, employment and wage costs for the alcoholic beverage producing industry and breaks down employment in breweries by type. For the years 1995 and 2005, the study estimates and compares the GDP contribution and employment generation of the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages in Belgium. These estimates are based on the input-output tables for both years.
Working Papers - Working Paper 21-10 (nl),
Other publications - Input-Output Table 2005 (fr), (nl),
This study discusses the possible effects of the Football World Cup in 2018 on economic expenditures. These expenditures mainly concern investments in stadiums and tourist spending by visitors. However, visiting teams, the media and organisational and security spending also generate effects. Total expenditure is estimated at €1.15 billion, spread over an eight - year period, with a large confidence interval. The effects of those expenditures on economic activity were calculated using two economic models: an input - output model and the macroeconomic model, HERMES . The effect on GDP should amount to approximately 0.13% in 2018. Employment should increase by roughly 450 to 750 jobs during the run - up to the tournament and by an equivalent of 4 000 to 8 000 man - years in the course of the tournament itself.
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-10 (en), (mix),
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
The present paper computes cumulative employment generated by the Belgian environmental industry. Relying on Belgian input-output tables for the year 2000 and on detailed employment data (SAM sub-matrix), we investigate the patterns of the employment in the environmental industry, by considering the worker types differentiated by gender, educational attainment or a combination of these characteristics. The employment multiplier analysis of environmental employment reveals some interesting differences between employment of the overall economy and environmental employment for the level of education as well as for the gender type.
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-09 (en),
The fear of massive job losses has prompted a fast-growing literature on offshoring and its impact on employment in advanced economies. This paper examines the situation for Belgium. The offshoring intensity is computed as a volume measure of the share of imported intermediate inputs in output based on a series of constant price supply-and-use tables for the period 1995-2003. Both materials and business services offshoring to high-wage and low-wage countries are addressed. The split-up according to the origin of the imported intermediates is done combining detailed trade data with data from the use table. The main findings are that materials offshoring stands at a higher level than business services offshoring, but that the latter grows much faster especially for the Central and Eastern European countries. Estimations of static and dynamic industry-level labour demand equations augmented by offshoring intensities do not reveal a significant impact of either materials or business services offshoring on total employment for Belgium between 1995 and 2003. However, this does not preclude a differential impact by skill-level.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-09 (en),
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 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 18-08 (fr), (nl),
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 (en),
This paper introduces the notion of qualitative employment multipliers. For each final demand product, a set of employment multipliers was computed. Each of these gives the use of an employment type characterised by gender, age class, professional status, education level or labour regime. The paper describes a method for compiling qualitative employment multipliers and shows results based on disaggregated employment and input output data for 2000 and 2002.
Articles - Article 2007121003
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 (en),
This paper presents the methodology for the compilation of a time series of supply and use tables for Belgium in current and constant prices for the period 1995-2002. These data have been produced at the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau within the framework of the EUKLEMS project and constitute an input for the project’s productivity database. The compilation of the time series was based on national accounts data and existing supply and use tables. The methodology consisted in splitting several industries and products, adapting existing data to the latest national accounts revisions, estimating missing tables as well as deflating current price supply and use tables.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-07 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-07 (nl),
This working paper assesses the impact of the oil price shock on the Belgian economy and tries to explain why the impact has been very limited when compared to the oil price shocks in the seventies.
Articles - Working Paper 01-06
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-06 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-05 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-05 (nl),
Other publications - Input-Output Table 2000 (fr), (nl),
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