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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.
This working paper describes the new version of MODTRIM II, the FPB’s quarterly macroeconomic model for short-term forecasting. The short-term forecasts are published three times a year and are referred to as the "economic budget", as they are used by the federal government to set up its budget and to perform budgetary control exercises. The objective of this working paper is not to provide a complete description of the model, but to focus on the specification and estimation results of the behavioural equations.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-14 (en),
Compilation of the different presentations held at the presentation of the “Medium-term economic outlook 2014-2019” at the Central Economic Council on 25 June 2014.
Speeches & presentations - SP140625_01 (mix),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2014-2019 (fr), (nl),
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains the main conclusions from the publications of the FPB, as well as information on new publications, together with an analysis of the most recent economic indicators.
Closed series - Short Term Update 02-14 (en),
Since mid-2013, the Federal Planning Bureau has produced a series of studies and simulations at the request of and for the Commission on Pension Reform 2020-2040 under the research contract agreed between the Department Social Security and the Federal Planning Bureau.
Reports - OP_REP_PEN14
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2014-2015 (June)
This study was commissioned by the Central Economic Council (CEC), and more particularly by the Special Advisory Commission ‘Construction’. It presents the sectoral results of a report that was produced in 2011 by the National Bank of Belgium and the Federal Planning Bureau. The federal government had asked both institutions to conduct a comprehensive study of a fiscal reform aiming at encouraging employment and supporting business competitiveness. As requested by the CEC, we comment here in detail the impact of a VAT increase without additional measures, on the one hand, and the impact of a VAT increase with transitional neutralization of the effect of that increase on the indexation. As regards the other measures examined, tables of results are annexed.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-14 (fr),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2014-2019 (march) (fr), (nl),
Reports - OPREP201402 (fr),
The Federal Planning Bureau and the Directorate-General Statistics and Economic Information have updated their demographic projections until 2060. Belgium’s population should grow from 11.1 million in 2013 to 11.9 million in 2030 (+7%) and 12.5 million in 2060 (+13%). The number of private households in Belgium should rise from 4.8 million in 2013 to 5.3 million in 2030 (+11%) and 5.8 million in 2060 (+21%).
These results are based on a set of hypotheses regarding the future evolution of birth and death rates, international and domestic migration and, as far as households are concerned, the evolution of the different ways of living together. One chapter of the publication deals with prospective mortality rates, which allows projecting « period » life expectancies (cross-sectional approach) and « generational » life expectancies (cohort approach).
Forecasts & Outlook - EFPOP1360 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2014 (fr), (nl),
Privatization, internal market, interconnections, greenhouse gas emission reductions, renewable energy targets… is it possible to reconcile these themes? And if so, will our lights stay on? This is a major concern of a number of players in the energy field, especially the Secretary of State for Energy since he is responsible for guaranteeing the security of supply. In times of increased electricity production by variable energy sources and of distorted investment signals, guaranteeing security of supply is not evident, since the absence of investments in sufficient reserve capacity and – worst case scenario – inadequacy of generation capacity may lead to soaring societal costs. This Working Paper focuses on the specific event that, in spite of all initiatives and mechanisms in place, things go wrong: a national black-out paralyzing the entire Belgian economy for 1 hour and its price tag are analysed.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-14 (nl),
Closed series - Short Term Update 01-14 (en),
This working paper describes main evolutions in household expenditure for transport in Belgium. Results are based on data from national accounts (National Accounts Institute, Eurostat) as well as data from Household budget surveys (Statistics Belgium).
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-14 (fr),
The present document is the third 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.
This progress report gives an overview of the measures to follow up and reviews the progress of their implementation (situation on January 31, 2014). In addition, the report attempts to provide an analysis of those measures.
Reports - OPREP201401 (fr), (nl),
Closed series - Planning paper 114 (fr), (nl),
At the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the National Institute for Health and Invalidity Insurance (NIHDI) asked the Federal Planning Bureau to draft a report on the social impact of public health care and health care insurance. We focused on three specific questions. First, what was the contribution of health care to population health during the past half-century? Lacking sufficient data on other dimensions of health, we look at mortality and life expectancy. Two approaches to this question lead to the same conclusion: the expansion of health care has contributed substantially to the increase in life years. The second question concerns the role of health care in the economy. The value added and employment in the branches Health care and Social services has increased vastly between 1970 and making health care an ever more important part of the Belgian economy . The third question is about the impact of health care and public health care insurance on inequalities in health and income. Among other findings, we report that in Belgium there is no social inequality in the use of general practitioner, though there is in specialist consultations. Also, a fairly large number of older persons have to cope with own contributions to health care that exceed 10% of their income.
Reports - OP_INAMI_RIZIV_14 (fr), (nl),
The state reform was elaborated at a moment when large fiscal consolidation measures were required to restore the long-term sustainability of Belgian public finances. The 2011 institutional agreement provided that the federated entities contribute, through the reform, to the fiscal consolidation. That contribution can be justified by the fact that the reform, by reducing the budgetary size of the federal level, decreases the federal level’s room for manoeuvre and its capacity to resolve on its own the sustainability issue. The magnitude of the contribution necessary to prevent the sustainability challenge from deteriorating is assessed and compared to the redistribution of the public deficit as organized by the reform. The assessment is made in a constant policy scenario and for different assumptions about the reform's life span. This study shows that the transfer of fiscal burden to the federated entities is, a priori, sufficient not to aggravate the sustainability problem considering the reduced size of the federal level’s budget. The federated entities have gained scale and powers but will have to contribute substantially to the efforts to restore fiscal sustainability.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-14 (fr),
This new outlook for the world economy is based on the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau’s NIME model and covers the period 2013-2024. The projection indicates that there should be a limited growth rebound over the period 2013-2016. Over this period, economic growth should allow a closing of the euro area’s output gap, even though world economic growth should continue to be driven mainly by countries other than those of the EU, the United States and Japan. In the longer run, world growth should decline due to a general slowdown in productivity growth, but also due to unfavourable demographic trends.
It should be noted that these 2013-2024 projections for the world economy do not serve as input for the Federal Planning Bureau’s short-term forecasts and medium-term projections for Belgium. Indeed, these latter rely on various ad hoc methodologies and integrate international forecasts from institutions such as the EU Commission, the OECD and the IMF.
Forecasts & Outlook - NIME 01-13 (en),
Other publications - Input-Output Table 2010 (fr), (nl),
European Regulation 691/2011 obliges the member states of the European Union to deliver three environmental economic accounts as of 2013. The accounts concerned are the Environmental Taxes by Economic Activity (ETEA), the Air Emissions Accounts (AEA) and the Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts (EW-MFA).
In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the EW-MFA for the years 2008-2011.
Other publications - EWMFA 2013 (fr), (nl),
Over the last couple of decades, there has been a large scale reorganisation of manufacturing production processes within global value chains. This has been achieved through fragmentation and offshoring. Fostered by the fall in coordination costs due to information and communication technology developments, offshoring implies that firms increasingly source intermediates from abroad. In developed economies, this has raised fears of massive job losses. Most academic work, in contrast, fails to find evidence that offshoring contributes to lowering employment.
Working Papers - Working Paper 16-13 (en),
This Working Paper studies the financial and social sustainability of the Belgian social protection system. The results of this publication were presented at the 20st Congrès des économistes belges de langue française and published in the conference proceedings. Assuming no policy changes and against the background of population ageing, the long-term public finance projections highlight an important budgetary challenge. In that framework, this paper examines a number of pathways based on the three pillars of the European strategy as determined during the 2001 Stockholm summit. The budgetary strategy (pillar 1) of the Belgian stability programme in itself does not guarantee the long-term sustainability of public finance and should, therefore, be completed by reforms in support of economic growth (through employment or productivity, pillar 2) or reforms of the pension schemes (as part of pillar 3). The social consequences of the reforms which alter the generosity of the pension schemes should not be overlooked.
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-13 (fr),
This working paper describes TransAccount, an accounting model created at the FPB to build sustainable development scenarios, in particular their climate and energy segment, using a backcasting approach. To construct a scenario with TransAccount, the long term objectives and hypotheses of a global sustainable development scenario (for example Pyramid or Mosaic, scenarios published in the Belgian 4th Federal Report on Sustainable Development) have to be translated into quantitative objectives and hypotheses on technologies and on consumption and production patterns. The constructed scenarios highlight the changes needed in technology and in consumption and production patterns to meet the challenges of a sustainable development.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-13 (fr), (nl),
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains the main conclusions from the publications of the FPB, as well as information on new publications, together with an analysis of the most recent economic indicators
Closed series - Short Term Update 04-13 (en),
Federal Planning Bureau
