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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.
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2010-2011 (fr), (nl),
The concepts of potential growth and the output gap are important tools, respectively, for assessing the supply- side capacity of an economy and evaluating the state of the business cycle. They have also become an essential ingredient of the European fiscal surveillance process. In this Working Paper we compare, in the context of the financial crisis, revisions of potential output for Belgium made recently by the Federal Planning Bureau and international organizations. Those comparisons aim at highlighting the uncertainty associated with those revisions as well as having a better understanding of some of the channels through which the crisis may reduce potential output.
Articles - Article 2009100606
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
Transport is a major source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions and plays an important role in their evolution. Transport emissions are closely monitored and their future evolution is integrated into the FPB transport model, PLANET. The publication uses a decomposition analysis to compare the projected evolution of the emissions in the base scenario of the PLANET model to the base scenario of two other models and to put these in a historic perspective. The analysis focuses on Tank-to-Wheel emissions and is limited to three modes: road transport, railways and inland navigation.
Articles - Article 2009100604
Recent years have seen a growing interest in the economic potential of environmental protection activities. The protection of the environment necessitates the development, production and marketing of a host of environmentally friendly products and production processes, the development of the skills needed to use them, environmental legislation, an administration to keep track of these developments, etc. All these activities are provided for by the environment industry. This study investigates the development of the environment industry in Belgium between 1995 and 2005.
Articles - Article 2009100603
The publication of the fifth Federal Report on sustainable development implements the Belgian Act of 5 May 1997 on the Coordination of Federal Sustainable Development Policy. This Report contributes to the debate on the role and choice of indicators and objectives for measuring the development of a country and for the implementation of that strategic process. It studies a set of sustainable development indicators (SDI) that shows to what extent living conditions in Belgium are heading towards sustainable development strategic objectives (SDSO). The Report also studies these strategic objectives in the context of long term visions of society.
Articles - Article 2009100602
This special topic article describes three kinds of synthetic indicators complementing GDP: the Human Development Index, the Ecological Footprint with Biocapacity and, third, indicators based on Environmental Satellite Accounts. It shows that these indicators, among others, provide useful additional information on the human and environmental resource bases of development.
Articles - Article 2009100601
The concepts of potential growth and output gap are important tools to evaluate the state of the business cycle and to assess the supply-side capacity of an economy. They have also become an essential ingredient of the European fiscal surveillance process. However, the global economy is facing its most widespread crisis in the post-war era and consequently the uncertainty regarding the impact of the crisis on supply-side conditions is enormous. In this Working Paper we compare revisions on potential growth for Belgium made recently by the Federal Planning Bureau and international organizations. Those comparisons aim at highlighting the uncertainty associated with those revisions as well as understanding better some of the channels through which the crisis may reduce potential output.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-09 (fr),
Speeches & presentations - SP090915_01 (nl),
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 08-09 (nl),
Other publications - OPHERMREG0901 (fr), (nl),
Speeches & presentations - SP090629_01 (fr),
This study presents an overview of the evolution of the size, the composition and the economic importance of the environment industry in Belgium between 1995 and 2005. It shows which industries are involved and which environmental domains are most important.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-09 (en),
Other publications - OPVERG200901 - Report (fr), (nl),
The new medium-term economic outlook for Belgium has been drawn up in an international context that is heavily influenced by the financial crisis and the deep economic recession this has brought about. Belgian GDP should fall by nearly 4% in 2009, followed by zero growth in 2010 as the crisis subsides. In the wake of a worldwide recovery, Belgian GDP growth should start accelerating from 2011 onwards, resulting in average growth for the period 2011-2014 (2.3%) that is similar to the average of the past twenty years. Note that the global economic situation is beset with many uncertainties and, therefore, the outlook is surrounded with considerable risks, especially for the short term.
Households are expected to raise their precautionary savings dramatically in 2009, thus lowering their consumption compared to last year (-0.6%). Strongly unfavourable demand prospects, combined with a sharp drop in profitability and deteriorated external financing conditions will lead to a sharp contraction in business investment (-7.5%). Domestic demand should recover slightly in 2010 and more markedly from 2011 onwards. The volume of Belgian exports is expected to go down for two years in a row (-8.9% in 2009 and -0.6% in 2010) and the contribution of net exports to GDP growth should be largely negative. From 2011, Belgian export growth should be close to its historical growth rate (4.8%). After a peak in 2008 (4.5%), the inflation rate should fall to 0.3% on average in 2009. In the medium term, inflation is expected to pick up again, but to remain below 2%.
The effects on employment of the sudden fall in activity should materialise progressively: domestic employment should drop on average by 37 000 jobs this year and by 53 000 jobs next year. The recovery in 2011 should not be labour-intensive and employment is only expected to increase significantly from 2012 onwards (by a little more than 43 000 jobs a year on average). This evolution of employment, combined with an increase in the labour supply, should lead to a rise in unemployment of 194 000 units from 2009 to 2011. In the next three years, the unemployment rate (broad administrative definition) should go up from 11.8% to 15.2%. As from 2012, the unemployment rate should gradually decrease to reach 14.5% in 2014.
Under the assumption of constant policy, public sector accounts are expected to deteriorate markedly, with a net public financing requirement of 4.3% of GDP in 2009, widening to 5.6% of GDP in 2010. The end of the recession will not lead to a reduction in the deficit, which should peak at 6.1% of GDP in 2012 before slightly improving afterwards. As a result, Belgian public debt should again experience a snowball effect, going up from 89.3% of GDP in 2008 to 106% of GDP in 2014.
STU 2-09 was finalised on 27 May 2009
Closed series - Short Term Update 02-09 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-09 (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2009-2014 (fr), (nl),
Speeches & presentations - SP090617_01 (fr),
Since August 2007, the world economy has fallen into recession and has been confronted with a severe financial crisis. In the context of what is now a world-wide recession, what hope can we place in announced fiscal stimulus plans? Will the fiscal stimulus plans decided and implemented in both the euro area and the United States since end 2008 be adequate responses, most notably in the face of the current systemic financial crisis? This document provides an evaluation of the effectiveness of fiscal policy and of current stimulus plans. It indicates that, while the fiscal stimulus measures will undoubtedly prove to be useful in limiting the scale and duration of the downturn, they won’t be sufficient by themselves to prevent a lengthy recession followed by a tepid recovery. In order to maximise the effectiveness of the stimulus plans, these should be accompanied by accommodative monetary policy. Furthermore, in view of accelerating and underpinning a recovery in world-wide economic activity, fiscal and monetary policies will also have to be supplemented by measures aimed at re-establishing properly functioning banking and financial sectors.
Forecasts & Outlook - NIME 01-09 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-09 (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-09 (fr),
Several legal missions from the Federal Planning Bureau require the construction of long-term macroeconomic scenarios for the Belgian economy. In order to increase the consistency of these scenarios and to build them within a rigorous theoretical framework, it appeared important to develop a new long-term model that considers economic growth as depending upon the supply of production factors.
The theoretical structure of the model draws on similar work done by the Dutch CPB. In the working paper we detail the construction, the properties and the estimation of the parameters based upon quarterly data from the Belgian national accounts. The model should contribute for instance to the production of long-term macro-economic scenarios to evaluate the budgetary cost of ageing.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-09 (fr),
Speeches & presentations - SP090326_01 (fr),
"Strategic table with sustainable development indicators" (SDI) contains 88 indicators on 51 issues. All these indicators are classified within the DPSR framework (driving force, pressure, state, response). A trend assessment in relation to goals, established in the sustainable development strategies at different policy levels (world, EU, Belgium), could be made for 54 of the SDI. 17 of these SDI, where quantified targets with time limits were alloted, were assessed in relation to these targets. The SDI table is available in French and Dutch.
Other publications - TFSD 0901 (fr), (fr), (nl), (nl),
Federal Planning Bureau
