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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.
According to our February forecast, quarterly GDP growth should remain limited to 0.3% on average in the course of 2010, which is about half of the quarterly growth in the second half of 2009. This slowdown is in line with the international business cycle, which should temporarily lose momentum to the extent that monetary and budgetary stimuli fade and restocking comes to an end. In the course of 2011, exports should pick up and domestic demand should gain momentum, resulting in average quarterly GDP growth of 0.6%. On a yearly basis, Belgian GDP should increase by 1.4% in 2010 and 1.7% in 2011, after a drop of 3% last year. This means that real GDP should remain below its pre-crisis level until late 2011.
Net job losses reached 23 200 persons on average in 2009 and should add up to 46 100 this year. This trend should reverse in 2011, with a net creation of 8 600 jobs. Given the evolution of the labour force, the number of unemployed (broad administrative definition) should increase by 52 900 persons this year (after going up by 45 000 persons in 2009) and by almost 29 000 persons in 2011. As a result, the harmonised Eurostat unemployment rate (which is based on labour force surveys) is expected to reach 8.8% in 2011, compared to 7% in 2008.
Headline inflation in Belgium, as measured by yoy growth of the national index of consumer prices, was negative from May to November 2009, which was mainly due to the negative impact of energy prices. As a result, overall inflation remained just below zero in 2009. At the end of last year, the base effect of the drop in energy prices had disappeared. Combined with a gradual increase in oil prices, headline inflation should rise to 1.7% in 2010 according to our inflation forecast of March.
Closed series - Short Term Update 01-10 (en),
The aim of this paper is to describe product market competition in the Belgian economy for the period 1997-2004 and to illustrate some causality with market regulation. The analysis is held at the industry level, for selected manufacturing and services industries. Emphasis is given to the profit elasticity (PE) measurement of competition (the "Boone" indicator) and the average profitability (AP) indicator (an approximation of the mark-up indicator). We applied the OECD Regimpact indicator as a proxy for regulation. We present some stylized facts, for Belgium in comparison with selected EU countries; and through an econometric exercise we illustrate the potential of regulation as an explanatory variable for competition.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-10 (en),
The vehicle stock module calculates the size and composition of the car stock. Its output is a full description of the car stock in every year, by vehicle type, age and (emission) technology of the vehicle. The vehicle stock is represented in the detail needed to compute transport emissions. The integration of the car stock module in PLANET will allow to better capture the impact of changes in fixed and variable taxes levied on cars. Among these impacts, the effect on the environment is of particular interest.
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-10 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-10 (fr),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic forecasts 2010-2011 (2) (fr), (nl),
Closed series - Planning Paper 108 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 18-09 (mix),
Working Papers - Working Paper 17-09 (fr), (nl),
This study attempts to measure the impact of industry-level wage bargaining on individual wages in Belgium. The results indicate that industry wage bargaining increases decided collectively at the industry level are, on average, fully passed on to actual wages. Moreover, industry wage bargaining seems to coexist along with a wage drift affected by company size, the economic performance of the industry and labour market tensions.
Articles - Article 2009122103
This study is devoted to the analysis of the main effects on the Belgian economy, for the period 2010-2020, of various forms of tax-shifting aimed at increasing taxes on energy and, simultaneously, decreasing other forms of taxation. All these variants have been simulated using the FPB’s medium-term model for Belgian economy (HERMES).
Articles - Article 2009122102
By the end of 2009, all Member States of the EU must have transposed the Services directive into national law. This will constitute a major step forward in the completion of the legal framework for the internal market, but its economic impact is expected to be relatively small. It may lead to double-digit export growth for certain services branches. The small scale of these exports, however, gives rise to a weak impact on turnover, value added and employment.
Articles - Article 2009122101
In December 2008, the European Union adopted an integrated Energy/Climate package which steps up the Union’s energy and climate policy ambitions to a new level and outlines how the effort will be shared among the Member States. This paper underlines the benefits of the EU Energy/Climate package in terms of energy supply security for Belgium, and more specifically the positive impacts the twin target – greenhouse gas emissions reduction and development of renewable energy sources – has on our dependence on fossil fuels. More specifically, the paper shows that substitutions in favour of renewables and a decrease in energy demand including the demand for electricity, which are the key responses of the Belgian energy system to the Energy/Climate package, not only allow to keep a balanced fuel mix in power generation in 2020 but also lead to reduced overall fossil fuel imports relative to baseline projections. They also water down the trend towards an increased dependency on natural gas imports. Net imports of fossil fuels decrease by 9% in 2020 compared to baseline trends. Compared to the year 2005, they increase only slightly by 3%. The growth of natural gas imports is limited to 11% over the same period, against +21% in the baseline.
Working Papers - Working Paper 16-09 (en),
In view of the new round of stability and convergence programmes (SCP) by the EMU member states, the FPB transmitted a medium-term outlook for the Belgian economy to the federal government. In this outlook, the short-term international assumptions are based on the November forecasts of the EC. These assumptions result in a gradual recovery of Belgian GDP in 2010 (0.8%) and 2011 (1.6%), after a decline of 3.1% in 2009. More information on this simulation can be found on pages 5-6.
As world trade appears to recover at a faster pace than expected in the EC outlook, the FPB produced a technical update of the SCP-simulation. This second simulation results in relatively stronger Belgian economic growth in 2010 and 2011 (1.1% and 1.7% respectively). From 2012 to 2014 economic growth is expected to be 2.1% on average, which might not be sufficient to close the output gap by 2014. Comments in the next paragraphs are based on this exercise.
Private demand was heavily affected by the financial and economic crisis. Private consumption suffered from a lack of confidence which brought an important increase along in the savings rate in 2009. In the medium term, consumption growth should gradually recover but remain below 2%. Gross fixed capital formation plummeted in 2009 and is unlikely to recover soon as idle production capacity is still abundant. From 2011 to 2014, average investment growth should amount to 2.1%. Exports declined by more than 10% in 2009, but should recover from 2010 onwards and reach an average growth rate of 4.4% from 2011 to 2014.
As employment typically reacts with a lag to the business cycle, the decrease in employment should even be stronger in 2010 than in 2009, before increasing gradually from 2011 onwards. The (broad administrative) unemployment rate should increase by 2.5 percentage points in 3 years and reach 14.3% in 2011. From 2012 onwards the unemployment rate should diminish somewhat, but total administrative unemployment should still amount to more than 730 000 persons in 2014 (130 000 persons more than in 2008).
Due to the recession the public deficit increased to 5.8% of GDP in 2009. Under an unchanged policy assumption the net public financing requirement should decline by 0.6% of GDP in 2010 and roughly stabilise somewhat below 5.5% in the medium term.
STU 04-09 was finalised on 21 December 2009.
Closed series - Short Term Update 04-09 (en),
The transport satellite accounts (TSA) show the total transport expenditure in Belgium in 2000. The TSA are a complement to the information in the national accounts for transport activities, which are only partially described in this general framework. Transport generates externalities that are not taken into account in the total expenditure as defined in the satellite accounts. The study assesses the external costs of various transport modes and contains a joint analysis of the externalities and of the main TSA results for 2000. The analysis reveals the extent of the transport costs and externalities, especially of road transport. The estimated external costs concern air pollution, climate change, accidents, noise and congestion.
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-09 (fr),
New measures need to be taken in order to reduce the negative impact of transport. This study presents various theoretical schemes for the introduction of road pricing in Belgium and analyses their impact on transport, the environment and welfare by using the PLANET model. The internalisation of external costs, while difficult to implement in the short term, improves welfare significantly. In order to improve welfare, a road tax system aimed at lorries exclusively should allow for a suitable differentiation according to the actual periods of transport. Extending the road pricing system so as to include vans has a positive effect on welfare and also avoids shifting part of the road freight to vans. Extending road pricing to all road motor vehicles (lorries, vans and individual cars) significantly improves welfare, road congestion and the average speed on the road network. On the other hand, it induces a very marked surge in the demand for rail and other public transport (buses, trams and metros), which would almost certainly exceed the capacity of existing infrastructures. Potential management problems of rail and other public transport such as buses, trams and metros could be avoided if the generalisation of the road pricing system to all road motor vehicles were combined with the withdrawal of subsidies for public transport.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-09 (fr),
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 (en),
Other publications - BOOK_09_01 (fr), (nl),
Other publications - EPE 2008-2017 - Final report (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-09 (fr),
This study is devoted to the analysis of the main effects, on the Belgian economy, of various forms of tax shifting aimed at increasing taxes on energy and decreasing other taxes (mainly taxes on labour). Results show that, if the increase in energy taxes is combined with a reduction of taxes on labour, a double dividend (rise in employment and decrease in energy consumption and CO2 emissions) can be obtained.
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-09 (fr),
Reports - Sustainable development Report 2009 - Folder (de), (en), (fr), (nl),
Reports - Sustainable development Report 2009 (fr), (nl),
After the escalation of the financial crisis in September 2008, the industrialised countries were pulled into a deep recession. The main uncertainty that currently surrounds economic forecasts concerns the robustness of the international economic recovery. In fact, monetary and fiscal policies have been able to stabilise the world economy more rapidly than expected, but it remains difficult to predict whether the economic recovery is able to withstand the fading out of the impact of the economic stimulus measures.
According to our September forecast, Belgian GDP growth should become slightly positive in the second half of 2009. In the course of 2010, economic growth should also be supported by domestic demand. Quarterly GDP growth should pick up further in the course of 2011 and reach 0.6%. This will result in annual GDP growth rates amounting to 0.4% in 2010 and 1.9% in 2011, after a drop of 3.1% this year.
Whereas total net job creation still amounted to 71 200 persons on average last year, 34 600 jobs should be lost this year. In 2010, job losses should add up to 58 900 on average. In 2011, a net job creation of 17 600 persons on average is expected. Given the evolution of the labour force, the number of unemployed (broad administrative definition) should increase by 53 900 persons this year, by 98 400 next year and a further 23 300 persons in 2011. As a result, the harmonized Eurostat unemployment rate (which is based on labour force surveys) is expected to reach 9.6 % in 2011, compared to 7% in 2008.
According to our inflation update of October, headline inflation (as measured by yoy growth of the national index of consumer prices) has become negative since May and should remain so until November 2009. The yoy decrease of the index results from the price evolution of a limited number of products and is temporary. Underlying inflation should cool down further as a reaction to weak economic activity and the gradual pass through of lower energy prices into the prices of other goods and services, but should remain clearly positive. This year, inflation should be zero on average, mainly due to the negative impact of energy prices. As oil prices should increase gradually, their negative impact on inflation should disappear, resulting in a rise in inflation to 1.3% in 2010, despite the decrease in underlying inflation (from 2% in 2009 to slightly above 1% in the second half of 2010).
STU 3-09 was finalised on 6 October 2009
Closed series - Short Term Update 03-09 (en),
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
Federal Planning Bureau
