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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.
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 its three neighbouring countries and the US over 1970 and 2015. Recent evolutions, over 2000-2015, are analysed in details in order to shed light on the impact of the great recession. The growth accounting methodology is applied to explain labour productivity growth for the total economy, manufacturing and market services.
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-17 (en),
This working paper provides an update of a study from 2007 in which the accuracy of the medium-term outlooks for the Belgian economy is assessed. The study is expanded with nine additional editions of the Economic Outlook covering a mixture of pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods.
In the framework of the Act of 28 February 2014 on the National Accounts Institute the Scientific Committee for the economic budget has taken note of this study and has issued an opinion on it.
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-17 (en), (fr), (mix), (mix), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2017-2018 (Sept) (fr), (nl),
The Federal Planning Bureau is responsible, within the National Accounts Institute, for producing the macroeconomic forecasts that are used to set up the federal government budget. This working paper presents an update of the ex post assessment of the quality of these forecasts. Compared to the previous working paper devoted to this topic, the sample has been extended by six additional years and the number of evaluated variables has been increased, in particular with series at current prices. Moreover, this paper also examines to what extent the observed forecast errors are due to errors made on exogenous assumptions related to the international environment.
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-17 (en), (fr), (nl), (nl), (mix),
European Regulation No 691/2011 (amended by European Regulation No 538/2014) obliges the member states of the European Union to deliver six environmental economic accounts as of 2017. The accounts concerned are the three accounts that have been obligatory since 2013, the Environmental Taxes by Economic Activity (ETEA), the Air Emissions Accounts (AEA) and the Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts (EW-MFA), as well as three accounts that have to be delivered as of 2017, the Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS), the Environmental Protection Expenditure Accounts (EPEA), and the Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA).
In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the ETEA for the years 2011-2015.
Other publications - REP_ETEA2017_11549 (fr), (fr), (nl), (nl),
In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the AEA for the years 2011-2015.
Other publications - REP_AEA2017_11554 (fr), (fr), (nl), (nl),
In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the PEFA for the years 2014-2015.
Other publications - REP_PEFA2017_11551 (fr), (fr), (nl), (nl),
The traditional attribution of responsibility for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to producing countries may be distorted by international trade flows as importing emission-intensive commodities contributes to reducing a country’s production-based emissions. This has motivated the calculation of carbon footprints that measure the amount of domestic and foreign GHG emissions (directly and indirectly) embodied in commodities intended for final consumption by a country’s residents. In this working paper, we present carbon footprint estimations for Belgium based on global multi-regional input-output (MRIO) tables that have been made consistent with detailed Belgian national accounts. According to our calculations, Belgium’s carbon footprint is substantially higher than its productionbased emissions, which means that Belgium is a net importer of GHG emissions. Moreover, our results show that consistency with detailed national accounts does matter for MRIO-based carbon footprint calculations, in particular for a small open economy like Belgium.
Working Papers - Working Paper 10-17 (en),
At the request of the federal Minister of Energy, this report was carried out as a follow-up on the cost-benefit analysis published by the Federal Planning Bureau in February 2017. It constitutes an addendum to the February study in that some additional questions impacting the Belgian production park are scrutinized in detail. Four topics are dealt with. The first one concerns the impact of an increase in the Belgian cross-border transfer capacity by 2 GW on the functioning of the domestic flexible thermal park. The effect this will cause on the full load hours, the system marginal cost, CO2 emissions, the required volumes of natural gas and employment is studied. Second, the report assesses the cost of keeping currently existing gas-fired power plants operational and provides a comparison with the cost of building new flexible and reliable units. Third, the socio-economic impact of an increased risk of a black-out is scrutinized. The economic asymmetry this induces in relation to the costs and benefits of maintaining sufficient domestic capacity to comply with the legally defined Loss of Load (LOLE) criterion of 3h is documented. Finally, the question of premature closure of currently existing Belgian gas-fired power plants that have not yet reached the end of their operational lifetime is investigated by means of different indicators throughout the paper.
Reports - CBA_201702 (en),
The Commission for Pension Reform 2020-2040 proposed an adjusted pension system which calculates pensions based on collected points. An important aspect of that system implied that past wages should be adjusted on the basis of the average wage increase. This Working Paper investigates who will be the winners and the losers when this adjustment mechanism is introduced by means of a points system in the salaried workers' scheme, and why. We show that people with low pensions, low-skilled workers, tenants and women nowadays have certain career features which make sure that they gain more often from such an operation than people with high pensions, highly skilled workers, owners and men. This also underlines the importance of minimum schemes in the impact of such a reform.
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-17 (nl),
This paper proposes a new model to account for unobserved heterogeneity in empirical modelling. The model extends the well-known Finite Mixture (or Latent Class) Model by using the Johnson family of distributions for the component densities. Due to the great variety of distributional shapes that can be assumed by the Johnson family, the method does not impose the usual a priori assumptions regarding the type of densities that are mixed.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-17 (en),
Transport models used for long-term projections should reflect the impact of shared, automated and electric mobility modes. The objective of the current paper is to derive lessons from the existing literature on vehicle ownership modelling to find options to further improve the PLANET model, which is used for projections of transport demand in Belgium.
PLANET is already well equipped to represent the impacts of shared and automated cars on the opportunity cost of travel time, the load factors and the annual mileage of cars.
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-17 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - OPHERMREG1701 (fr), (nl),
Other publications - FORVERG201701 (fr), (mix), (nl),
The goal of this paper is to estimate the efficiency cost of one additional euro of revenue through the personal income tax system, considering its simultaneous effects on the labour market and the transport market. More precisely, we seek to derive estimates of the Marginal Excess Burden of marginal personal income tax rates in Belgium considering the subsidization of company cars. We find that taking into account of welfare losses in the transport market adds 5-7 cents to the welfare cost of an additional euro of tax revenue, compared to models that consider only the effects on the labour market. The cost of raising the top marginal tax rate rises by 28% to 58% depending on the model assumptions. As an aside, we estimate tax expenditure on the transport sector via the personal income tax system to be 1.9 billion euro. We conclude that there is scope for welfare improving by base broadening and rate cutting. The framework is applied to analyse the merits of cash-for-car proposals.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-17 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2017-2022 (fr), (mix), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2017 - June 2017 (fr), (nl),
This Working Paper analyses the determinants of individual well-being in Belgium, using data from the EU-SILC survey. The analysis shows that on average health, both mental and physical, is the key determinant of well-being for Belgians. Enjoying sufficient income to access what is regarded as the prevailing standard of living in Belgium, having a job and being surrounded by loved ones also have a significant and positive impact on well-being. Besides these results for "average" Belgians, the analysis of different sub-groups highlights that these determinants are not of equal importance to all Belgians. These results contribute to the FPB’s work on the search for indicators complementary to GDP.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-17 (en), (fr), (nl),
Supplementary table 29, "Accrued-to-date pension entitlements in social insurance" for Belgium will be published for the first time in 2017. This table covers the pension schemes in social insurance: statutory pensions and occupational pensions, whether they are funded or not. Table 29 shows the pensions entitlements on an accrued-to-date basis. These are present values of the pension entitlements of the retired population and the part of pension entitlements that is already accrued by the future beneficiaries. As such, accrued-to-date liabilities do not represent public debt and are not an indicator of the fiscal or financial sustainability of the pension systems and are only appropriate for national accounts purposes. Accrued-to-date liabilities should only be interpreted as an asset from the households in national accounts’ terminology. An assessment of the sustainability of the pension systems can be found in the reports of the Ageing Working Group or the Belgian Study Commission for Ageing.
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-17 (en),
This study presents a compact model that allows a stylised, yet dynamic reasoning on the main macrofiscal aggregates that are relevant for setting budgetary paths compatible with the structural budget balance requirements of the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact. Some lessons on the conduct of fiscal policy in a reference framework in structural terms can be learned from the simulations provided for illustrative purposes. These simulations show in particular that – under certain conditions relating to the degree to which the budgetary adjustments have a permanent effect on the economic activity and thus on potential GDP – when the feedback effects of adjustments on the underlying macroeconomic environment are left out of consideration, this can be detrimental to the credibility of the considered structural paths.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-17 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-17 (nl),
Reports - REP_CEP8_11421 (mix),
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-17 (fr),
This report is an input to the preparation of the new Stability Programme and of the new National Reform Programme (NRP). It presents the assumptions and the main results of the preliminary version of the “Economic Outlook 2017-2022”. The final version of the outlook will be published in June 2017.
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2017-2022 - March 2017 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - EFPOP1660 (fr), (nl),
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