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Monthly evolution of the consumer price index and of the so-called health index, which is used for the price indexation of wages, social benefits and house-rent.
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains, in English, 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.
While rising health care expenditures as a percentage of national income is a well-known and widely documented feature across the industrialized world, it has proved difficult to quantify the effects of the underlying cost drivers. The main difficulty is to find suitable proxies to measure medical technological innovation, which is believed to be a major determinant of steadily increasing health spending. This paper’s main contribution is the use of data on approved medical devices and drugs to proxy for medical technological progress. The effects of these variables on total real per capita health spending are estimated using a panel model for 18 OECD countries covering the period 1981-2009. The results confirm the substantial cost-increasing effect of medical technology, which may account for at least 50% of the explained historical growth of spending. Excluding the approval variables causes a significant upward bias of the estimated income elasticity of health spending and negatively affects some model specification tests. Despite the overall net positive effect of technology, the effect of two subgroups of approvals on expenditure is significantly negative. These subgroups can be thought of as representing ‘incremental medical innovation’, while the positive effects are related to radically innovative pharmaceutical products and devices. The results are consistent with those reported in other studies which suggest that some new products, despite their high price when they are introduced, can ultimately save money by reducing spending on other medical interventions.
In the recent past, medium-term projections were given less attention than short-term analyses. However, things appear to have evolved and mid-term prospects seem to be enjoying a renewed interest. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, many countries have been confronted with large imbalances in terms of high unemployment, unused production capacities or financial deficits. In the longer term, demographic changes, including population ageing, are likely to cause massive changes in the composition of GDP. Addressing these various challenges can only be considered in the context of medium- and long-term scenarios.
This paper presents the results of an initial evaluation of federal fiscal incentives in support of Research and Development (R&D) by companies in Belgium. The impact of regional subsidies and the partial exemption from advance payment for R&D personnel is estimated for the period 2001-2009. The results show that the existing measures of public support have stimulated companies to carry out additional R&D activities.
In 2011, the four Belgian ministers (1 federal, 3 regional) in charge of energy commissioned a consortium consisting of three scientific partners, being the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB), the Institut de Conseil et d'Etudes en Développement Durable (ICEDD) and the Vlaams Instituut voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) to analyse the feasibility as well as the impact of a Belgian energy system transformation towards 100% renewable energy by 2050. This target is not focalized on the sole power sector, it applies to all primary energy consumed on the Belgian territory.
The main question that is raised in this publication is whether Belgium is able to fully function on renewable energy sources by 2050. Although the objective is highly ambitious, this study shows that it is (technically) possible. The switch to an all renewable system would require a total investment of 300 to 400 billion euro during the period up to 2050. At the same time, however, the transition offers an answer to many challenges.
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains, in English, 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.
Belgium is characterised by one of the lowest employment rates of elderly workers in the European Union. Since 1997, attempts have been made to discourage elderly workers from leaving the labour market before the age of 65. In particular, two measures aimed at reducing early retirement have been introduced. The first extends the number of career years required to enter early retirement. The second, called “pension bonus”, financially stimulates elderly workers to pursue employment after the age of 62. This paper provides an ex-post evaluation of the impact of these two measures on the probability of remaining employed a year later using a difference-in-differences strategy. Our data consists of individual longitudinal employment data covering the period 2000-2009. Using panel data logit models, we find first that the extension of the career length requirement had a significant impact on the probability of staying employed a year later for blue collar and low income white collar male workers aged 60-61 compared to those aged 62-64 during the period 2000-2006. Our second exercise proceeds to estimate the impact of the “pension bonus” during the period 2004-2009, in the presence of the extension of the career length requirement. Comparing the two exercises allows us to conclude that the “pension bonus” had, if any, a very limited impact on the probability of staying employed a year later for male workers aged 62-64 compared to those aged 60-61.
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains, in English, 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.
Since 1994, the Federal Planning Bureau is responsible for drawing up the five-year input-output tables for Belgium. These tables are a unique tool for analysing the interdependences between the branches of the Belgian economy. When integrated in an input-output model, they provide rapidly different synthetic measures of the interdependences. The WP presents two classic applications of the IO models : multipliers and linkage measures.
The Federal Planning Bureau’s new outlook for the world economy presents projection results for the main economic areas of the world over the period 2012-2020. The projection assumes a stable institutional framework in the European Union and the absence of any balance sheet consolidation that would be severe enough to have lasting effects on GDP growth rates. In such a framework, the projection for the euro area indicates that moderate growth in final domestic demand and positive real net exports should generate moderate real GDP growth over the period 2012-2020. Output growth should be strong enough to outpace the rise in potential output, thus closing the area’s output gap by 2017. The closing of the output gap would be accompanied by a decline in the area’s unemployment rate, which should fall back to its pre-crisis level. At the same time, consumer price inflation should pick up, reaching by 2020 a level compatible with the European Central Bank’s inflation target. The budgetary consolidation measures that are assumed in the projection should lead to primary surpluses that would allow for a decline in the area’s gross public sector debt-to-GDP ratio.
This Working Paper describes the process of the participatory foresight exercise "Strategic Long Term Vision for Sustainable Development" and summarizes its results. It gathers the different documents of this exercise together and gives some concluding remarks on the process. This exercise was organized by the Task Force on Sustainable Development of the Federal Planning Bureau between September 2011 and February 2012, with a panel of experts brought together with this aim.
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains, in English, 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.
A major concern regarding the consequences of offshoring is about the labour market position of low‐skilled workers. This paper provides evidence for Belgium that offshoring has had a negative impact on the employment share of low‐skilled workers in the manufacturing sector between 1995 and 2007. The main contribution to the fall in the low‐skilled employment share came from materials offshoring to Central and Eastern Europe (21%), followed by business services offshoring (8%). In manufacturing industries with a higher ICT capital intensity the impact of offshoring is smaller. For market services industries, no robust conclusions regarding the impact of offshoring on low‐skilled employment could be drawn.
Users of Supply and Use Tables (SUT) and Input-Output Tables (IOT) compiled in different national accounts (NA) vintages face a problem of consistency of their data due to revisions in the NA. This paper describes the methodology that has been followed to compile a consistent time series of Belgian SUT and IOT for the period 1995-2007, in line with the NA published in November 2010.
The Federal Planning Bureau presents its latest medium-term outlook (2012-2017) on 14 May 2012. The Economic Outlook 2012-2017 for Belgium is set against the background of budgetary consolidation and weak economic growth in Europe.
Short Term Update (STU) is the quarterly newsletter of the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau. It contains, in English, 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.
Since 1987, the Federal Planning Bureau has been providing long-term projections focused on the evolution of social expenditure within an overall framework of public finance. This outlook is based on different scenarios. This publication describes the methodology to construct the socio-economic and macroeconomic scenarios and illustrates it by presenting the main results from the 2011 projection made for the Annual Report of the Study Group on Ageing. The methodology proceeds as follows. The population projection is first split into four socio-economic categories: the school population, the potential labour, the disabled persons and the others. The macroeconomic scenario subsequently determines the evolution of employment and productivity. Finally, the second phase of the socio-economic projection disaggregates employment and unemployment further and estimates the number of pensioners.
This working paper analyses the performances of the Walloon innovation system in 2010. It concentrates on the six dimensions of the innovation system: knowledge development, human resources, R&D valorisation, innovation absorption capacity, entrepreneurial skills and financing capacity. These pillars are assessed by comparing the Walloon performances with those of European countries and regions with a similar industrial heritage. The analysis underlines the good performances of the mobilisation of financial resources in favour of R&D activities but also a potential problem in terms of human resources available for these activities. Maintaining a sufficient flow of competence by new science graduates and engineers and by the implementation of lifelong learning remains the key challenge in the years to come.
The 1996 Act establishes a preventive wage norm, based on the expected evolution of the labour costs in three reference countries, namely France, Germany and the Netherlands. It refers for those three countries to forecasts drawn up by the OECD. In its "Economic Outlook", the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) analyses in the chapter on the labour market, particularly since the 2007 edition, the monitoring of the “wage norm”. This analysis revealed the existence of different concepts of wage costs. This note aims to clarify and explain these concepts as well as the wage developments in these different meanings. It also seeks to raise questions related to these concepts
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