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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.
Speeches & presentations - SP131121_01 (fr),
Speeches & presentations - SP131121_02 (fr),
Speeches & presentations - SP131121_03 (fr),
This Working Paper is aimed at describing the current version of Federal Planning Bureau’s medium-term macrosectoral model, named HERMES. This model is used to produce on a regular basis medium-term outlooks for the Belgian economy. In addition to the main macroeconomic aggregates (GDP, private consumption, external trade, investments,…), those outlooks also concern labour market aggregates, detailed public finances, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The HERMES model is also used to compute the impact of policy measures and external shocks on the Belgian economy.
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-13 (en),
Other publications - GECE_EGCW_1302 (mix),
Reports - REP_DIPLBONI_201310 (mix),
Since many years, Statistics Belgium (Directorate General Statistics and Economic Information - DGSEI) and the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) have annually produced official population projections for Belgium at the NUTS3 level used by official Belgian institutions and in several short-, medium-, and long-term projection models (such as economic projections, income poverty, long-term healthcare expenditures, energy, transport) and for specific projects or demands. Aside from these official population projections, interest for household projections is growing. Indeed, understanding the population in this dimension is very useful for numerous aspects of social life (expansion of single-parent households - often mothers - or of isolated households with old persons who are at higher risk of poverty problems or short of support) and of economic life (impact on consumption, taxation, housing, mobility, etc). To do so, a household projection model for Belgium, calibrated on the Belgian population projection at the NUTS 3 level, is under development. The objective of this paper is to describe the model and to present the provisional results.
Speeches & presentations - SP131029 (en), (en),
This Planning Paper explores the usefulness and the need for long-term visions of society's development to guide the achievement of a sustainable society. Such a future society is able to combine material wealth improvements with social equity and justice and to limit its environmental impact to a level within the Earth's self-recovery capabilities. Government initiatives already taken in several industrialized countries to help respond to this need are reviewed. This review covers different levels of governance, from the sub-national to the global level, with a particular focus on the Belgian Federal Sustainable Development (SD) strategy adopted in a Parliamentary Act of 1997. It analyses in particular the content and the follow-up of the 2010 revision of this Act, which has introduced a long-term vision for Sustainable Development in this strategy.
Articles - Article 20130530
Over the last couple of decades, trade liberalisation has progressed and environmental regulations have become more stringent, in particular regarding emissions of air pollution. This has raised the fear in developed countries that emission-intensive activities are increasingly carried out abroad. This paper develops an approach for testing whether emission-intensive industries have greater shares of imported intermediate materials. The test is applied to the Belgian manufacturing sector for the years 1995-2007. Emissions of three types of air pollutants are analysed: greenhouse gases, acidifying gases and tropospheric precursor gases. The results provide evidence that industries with a high intensity in acidifying gas emissions (SO2, NOX and NH3) tend to import a greater share of intermediate materials. This is likely to be linked to the stricter enforcement of regulations for air quality, which act upon acidifying gases. There is no such evidence in the results for emissions of tropospheric precursor gases and in particular of greenhouse gases. Regarding the latter, despite stringent regulations, enforcement appears to be less strict.
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-13 (en),
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 ETEA for the years 2008-2011.
Other publications - ETEA 2013 (fr), (nl),
In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the AEA for the years 2008-2011.
Other publications - AEA 2013 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2013-2014 (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 03-13 (en),
The input-output table of 2005 has been, together with new versions of the tables for 1995 and 2005, subjected to a traditional input-output analysis by means of the cumulated costs : the analysis of value added and intermediate imports directly and indirectly caused in the whole economy by the deliveries of one industry to final demand. By means of this technique the share of energy in the (cumulated) cost structure of the industries and components of final demand is examined.
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-13 (nl),
The input-output table of 2005 has been, together with new versions of the tables for 1995 and 2005, subjected to a traditional input-output analysis by means of the cumulated costs: the analysis of value added and intermediate imports directly and indirectly caused in the whole economy by the deliveries of one industry to final demand. By means of this technique is examined which contribution to GDP each component of final demand generates.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-13 (mix),
The input-output table of 2005 has been, together with new versions of the tables for 1995 and 2005, subjected to a traditional input-output analysis by means of the cumulated costs : the analysis of value added and intermediate imports directly and indirectly caused in the whole economy by the deliveries of one industry to final demand. Two tendencies are observed: an increase of intermediate imports in the cost structures (1995-2000) and a de-industrialization (2000-2005). But a few particularities are also discovered.
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-13 (nl),
This Working paper presents the output, income and employment multipliers of the final demand in Belgium over the period 1995-2005. It exploits a consistent time series of input-output tables at constant prices for the years 1995, 2000 and 2005, which allows, for the first time in Belgium, to study the evolution of final demand multipliers without methodological break and without price effects.
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-13 (fr),
Speeches & presentations - SP130917_03 (nl),
In this working paper, the employment effect triggered by a transition towards an all renewable energy system in Belgium by 2050 is scrutinized. The job impact is estimated up until the year 2030. Using a labour intensity methodology, net job gains are to be expected in each renewable trajectory for any given year. A distinction is made between construction, installation and manufacturing (CIM) and operations, maintenance and fuel processing (O&M) jobs, with the maximum amount of CIM jobs created over the reference scenario exceeding the amount of O&M jobs. This points to the fact that renewable energy sources tend to have a higher construction and installation component in employment than fossil fuels. These installation jobs, along with numerous other job types (e.g. monitoring, planning, certifying), are bound to be and remain domestic. A sensitivity analysis on the effect of applying a decreasing employment multiplier over time is modeled, accompanied by an enumeration of arguments pro and contra using this type of multiplier. All through the paper, a number of reflections are brought to the fore that may nuance the obtained figures and effects. In order for the jobs to materialize, targeted educations, preferably in close collaboration with industry, technical schooling and interest in science are crucial. Enabling policies and measures within a solid, transparent policy framework should accompany the whole process. In this regard, some policy domains and actions are described that could prove useful in tapping the vast job potential.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-13 (en),
The analysis presented in this Working Paper is based on the scenarios of the draft Prospective Study for Electricity (PSE2) elaborated by the Directorate General for Energy of the FPS Economy, S.M.E.s, Self-employed and Energy in collaboration with the Federal Planning Bureau. The question examined in this analysis is whether the total generation capacity calculated in the PSE2 is compatible with the results of an adequacy assessment following ENTSO-E’s methodology (ENTSO-E is the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity).
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-13 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-13 (nl),
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),
Other publications - FORVERG201301 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - OPHERMREG1302 (fr), (nl),