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.

The idea of a top wealth tax has regained interest in Belgium, as opposed to the international trend in the last decades. While twelve OECD countries implemented it in 1990, only three still do since 2018. Such a tax raises questions. For the account of the Federal Planning Bureau, the ULB studied a top wealth tax to define its scope and understand the stakes at play.

In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the EGSS for the years 2014-2021.

This Review assesses the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB)’s institutional, operational and analytical performance as an independent fiscal institution. The FPB’s responsibilities have been growing and this Review provides insights into how effectively the institution continues to serve the needs of its stakeholders. As part of this, it looks at the Bureau’s performance related to its new mandate to undertake election budgetary costings and impact assessment, carried out for the first time in relation to the 2019 election.

Suburbanisation is a well-established phenomenon in the developments of Western societies. It carries the risk of increasing transport demand, in the periphery and towards urban centres, going against sustainability objectives. This work sheds light on the link between suburbanisation and transport demand. Two demographic development scenarios are considered, framing the reference scenario of the April 2022 Transport Demand Outlook. Their effect on transport demand is analysed.

A debate on the indicators for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals has been organised with experts from the federal public services and with the main advisory councils. The objectives of this debate were to establish a societal consensus on this set of indicators, to improve it and to set priorities among existing indicators to be added and among new indicators to be developed. The results of the debate will be used to adapt the set of indicators over the next 3 years: the majority of indicators will be maintained, some will be removed and others added.

We present a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis per market segment and powertrain of new cars sold in Belgium. We differentiate our results between cars sold to private households and company cars. Even though the median TCO of electric cars is lower than the median TCO of conventional powertrains in several market segments, there is a significant overlap in the TCOs of different powertrains in each market segment. It is therefore important to consider the whole distribution of the TCO.

This report presents the results of the June version of the "Economic Outlook 2023-2028". It describes the international context and the outlook for Belgian economic growth, inflation, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the labour market and public finances. The Outlook is based on information available on 6 June 2023.

The results of this report show that the average pension of women is lower than that of men: in december 2017 the average gross pension of women aged 65 and older was 1469 euros, compared to 1920 euros for men. The gender pension gap thus equals 24%. The fact that this gap is not higher can to an important extent be attributed to the existence of derived rights. Without derived rights the gap would be 50%.

On 1 October 2021, the government approved a new five-year Federal Plan for Sustainable Development. This plan is at the heart of federal sustainable development policy and this Working Paper describes the methodology for monitoring its implementation. The results are also presented here for the first time, and this exercise will be repeated every year from this spring onwards. It shows that in just one year, the public services have already reported on the implementation of more than 90% of the measures and that only 30% of the measures are not (yet) in an implementation phase.

This report presents over eighty indicators and includes an assessment of their progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015. It provides a detailed overview of Belgium's international position and of the differences between women and men. Finally, it analyses the evolution of Belgium's current well-being, among others in the context of (the end of) the Covid-19 pandemic, and its impact on the well-being of future generations and the rest of the world.

Belgium's population growth in 2022 is exceptionally high (+104 000 inhabitants) according to the new demographic projections. In the long term, however, the increase is less dynamic than in the past thirty years. Population growth in Flanders will remain relatively similar to that of recent decades. Wallonia is experiencing significantly lower growth than previously. In Brussels, the population will hardly increase in projection.

The European Commission released on 9 November 2022 a proposal to reform the framework for Member States' fiscal surveillance. The proposed new framework is based on risks to debt sustainability. For Belgium, which is highly exposed to these risks, it would imply a rapid and large-scale fiscal consolidation, and would be no less stringent than the fiscal rules previously in force and suspended since Covid-19. The proposal has not yet been adopted and still needs to be negotiated with the Member States.

MIDAS, the dynamic microsimulation model that focuses on the social sustainability of pensions, has undergone a major revision in recent years to improve the validity of the projections. This Working Paper not only reports on this revision, but also describes some important new modules.

In international agreements, countries are considered responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions linked to their production activities. The carbon footprint provides an alternative assessment of this responsibility by attributing emissions to the country where the goods and services are consumed. This study presents the production-based CO2 emissions and the carbon footprint of the three Belgian regions for the year 2015. According to the results, the carbon footprint exceeds production-based emissions for all three regions. This implies that their contribution to global CO2 emissions is larger from a consumption perspective than from a production perspective.

European Regulation No 691/2011 obliges the member states of the European Union to deliver six environmental economic accounts to Eurostat. 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 the 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 EPEA for the years 2014-2020.