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Publications

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.

Documents (205)

2009

  • Qualitative Employment Multipliers for the Belgian Environmental Industry 14/12/2009

    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  Publication(en),

  • The impact of offshoring on employment in Belgium 02/03/2009

    Worries about massive job losses have 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 the share of imported intermediate inputs in output, based on a series of constant price supply- and-use tables for 1995-2003. 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, but this does not preclude a differential impact by skill-level.

    Articles - Article 2009030203  

  • The impact of offshoring on employment in Belgium 23/01/2009

    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  Publication(en),

2008

  • Wages and employment by level of education and occupation in Belgium 17/12/2008

    Increased international economic integration and skill-biased technological change are often regarded as the main drivers of the rising inequality in wages and employment witnessed in industrialized countries in recent decades as they are believed to emphasize differences between individuals in level of education. However, proponents of a task-based view of technological change and offshoring stress the evolving content of tasks as the major determinant of shifts in labour demand and argue that this does not necessarily imply a clear-cut match between the level of education and job opportunities. Belgian data from the Structure and Distribution of Earnings Survey for the period 1999-2004 suggest that the level of wages is significantly correlated with the level of education but wage growth is not. Occupation seems to explain a statistically significant part of the wage level as well as wage growth of workers. The analysis supports the view that the level of education provides less information than the occupation of workers in explaining changes in wages and employment. Overall, it appears that a policy that simply aims to increase the level of education of the active population is not warranted. In addition to the risk of over-education, such a policy is not likely to alleviate the mismatch which to some extent exists between the competencies required by employers and the competencies offered by workers and the unemployed.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 22-08  Publication(en),

  • Growth and Productivity in Belgium 29/09/2008

    The objective of the report is to provide an overview of the main drivers of economic growth and the productivity evolution in Belgium, in comparison with the EU and the US, between 1970 and 2005, based on a consistent data set. The growth accounting methodology is applied to explain value added and labour productivity growth for the total economy, manufacturing and market services. This decomposition exercise diverges from what has been applied in Belgium up to now, as it uses capital services flows rather than the capital stock and labour services flows rather than the number of hours worked to measure the contribution of these factors of production to economic and productivity growth. Contributions of the main industries to value added, employment and productivity growth are also estimated.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 17-08  Publication(en),

2007

  • Qualitative employment multipliers for Belgium, results for 2000 and 2002 10/12/2007

    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  

  • Qualitative Employment Multipliers for Belgium, Results for 2000 and 2002 03/12/2007

    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  Publication(en),

  • Unemployment benefits and the long-term effectiveness of labour tax cuts 05/10/2007

    If unemployment benefits are indexed to gross wages and the replacement rate between unemployment benefits and net wages affects the wage rate, then cutting taxes falling on the supply of labour (personal income taxes or employees' social-security contributions) increases employment more than reducing taxes falling on the demand for labour (employers' social-security contributions).

    Articles - Article 2007100506  

  • Wage and age related employers’ SSC cuts and wage subsidies in the 2007 vintage of HERMES 27/09/2007

    The distinction between the young and the elderly within low and high wage earning employment in HERMES, the FPB's medium-term macroeconomic model, enables the assessment of both age and wage related labour cost reducing policies. The age structure of salaried employment in each branch of activity is embedded in a three-stage mechanism. First, aggregate demand and the relative cost of labour to capital determine salaried employment. Next, relative wages allocate employment among three major labour categories: low-paid jobs, high-paid jobs and special-employment programmes. Finally, within each labour category relative wages allocate employment between the young (aged less than fifty) and the elderly (aged fifty or more).

    Working Papers - Working Paper 12-07  Publication(en),

  • Le programme national de réforme de la Belgique - Effets macroéconomiques de réductions de charges sur le travail 25/09/2007

    Every three years, each EU  member state is required to set out its political priorities related to economic growth and job creation in  a so-called National Reform Programme ( NRP ). Gauged by the latest medium-term economic outlook produced by the Federal Planning Bureau, compliance with the main macroeconomic objectives contained in the Belgian NRP  will still require sizable efforts, especially regarding the labour market. Furthermore, our analysis shows that reducing social security contributions in order to lower the tax wedge on labour as foreseen in the NRP ,  is efficient in increasing the employment  rate, especially when targeted at low wage earners, but also that such policies have a negative  effect on the objectives related to public finances and CO 2 emissions.

    Working Papers - Working Paper 11-07  Publication(fr),

  • Potential ICT-enabled Offshoring of Service Jobs in Belgium 18/05/2007

    The present paper follows up on the longstanding tradition of analysing trends in relocation or offshoring at the Federal Planning Bureau. Replicating and extending a method developed by the OECD, it provides a rough estimate for Belgium of the proportion of service jobs at risk of being offshored in the wake of information and communication technology (ICT) developments, and compares the results for Belgium with results for the EU15 and the US. Occupational employment data from the Labour Force Survey are used to produce this estimate by identifying service jobs that could possibly be offshored due to ICT-enabled tradability.

    Articles - Article 2007051801  

  • Potential ICT-enabled Offshoring of Service Jobs in Belgium 10/04/2007

    This paper provides a rough estimate for Belgium of the proportion of service jobs at risk of being offshored in the wake of ICT-developments, and compares the results for Belgium with results for the EU15 and the US. Occupational employment data from the Labour Force Survey are used to produce this estimate by identifying service jobs that could possibly be offshored due to ICT-enabled tradability. The results show that the share of such jobs is lower for Belgium than for the EU15 or the US, but that there is an upward trend in this share over the period 1993 to 2005. Industry-level data and a shift-and-share analysis are used to explain the results.

    Working Papers - Working paper 06-07  Publication(en),

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