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 first part of this Working Paper discusses the main trends in Belgium regarding the risk of poverty, compared to those in the EU27 and neighbouring countries. A second part shows that the increase in the risk of poverty in the population under 60 years can be partly attributed to an increase in the concentration of the lack of paid work in certain households. Also, social security benefits and social assistance benefits are less and less successful in raising jobless households above the poverty threshold.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 06-21 (nl),
This paper considers the evolution in business dynamism and its potential link with productivity growth in Belgium. Statistics on business creation, the exit of enterprises and within-industry reallocation are presented. Data on Belgian firms, covering the period 2003-2017, are used for a decomposition of productivity growth. The paper provides robust indications of the substantial contribution of productivity growth of start-ups in the early years after entry.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 05-21 (en),
This Working Paper puts the policy choices made in the regional child benefit reforms into perspective. Using the microsimulation model EXPEDITION, the expected direct effects of these reforms on child benefit expenditure and income distribution are mapped out. Special attention is paid to the effects on the simulated poverty risk of (families with) children, as this was a shared concern during the reforms in the different regions.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 04-21 (nl),
The debate on the affordability of pensions is mostly limited to legal pensions while thus far, the affordability of supplementary pensions has hardly received any attention. Nevertheless, an increase in these pensions also affects public finances considering the lower government revenues that result from the various tax incentives used to promote supplementary pension saving. In this report we calculate the total impact of tax incentives for second pillar pensions on Belgian public finances.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 03-21 (nl),
Excess mortality in 2020 is estimated at 16,000 deaths. These 16,000 people lost a combined 124,000 years of life, given their life expectancy, or an average of 7.7 years per person. These values seem to show that COVID-19 did not just cause the death of the most vulnerable people who, in the absence of the epidemic, would have died anyway in the next weeks or months.
Fact Sheet - Fact Sheet 005
Report - REP 12409 (fr), (nl),
The National Recovery and Resilience Plan details the use of the €5.925 billion allocated under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The major part (88%) of the Belgian plan is directly intended to increase the capital stock of the Belgian economy through public investment and aid to private investment. In the short term, at the peak of the plan's stimulus effect, economic activity would be 0.2% higher than in the non-plan scenario. Although the stimulus is temporary, it has long-term effects due to the increase in the public capital stock and the support for R&D activities that improve the profitability of the capital stock of firms and encourage its accumulation. By 2040, GDP is still projected to be 0.1% above non-plan growth path. This estimate does not take into account the reform component of the plan, nor the broader recovery, investment and reform plans announced by the Regions and the federal government, nor the effect of foreign plans on the Belgian economy.
Report - REP 12401 (en), (fr), (nl),
This publication presents the main results of the demographic outlook for Belgium: population, households, births, deaths, international migration and internal migration. To show the sensitivity of the results to some assumptions, three alternative scenarios are analysed: one linked to the health crisis (Covid-19), another modifying the long-term mortality assumption and a last one adjusting the assumption on international emigration.
Forecasts & Outlook - FOR_POP2070_12389 (fr), (nl),
Report - REP_12361 (fr), (nl),
The "first recruitments"measure aims to promote employment while supporting small businesses and start-ups. The analysis shows that the measure has a positive but modest impact on the probability of survival of young businesses. Furthermore, the reinforcement in 2016 does not appear to have generated any additional benefit. On the one hand, these results imply that the strengthening of the measure does not address a genuine need on the part of the recipients. On the other hand, the reinforcement may have encouraged more employers to undertake a risky business activity.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 02-21 (fr),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2021-2026 (Feb.) (fr), (nl),
This working paper describes main evolutions in household expenditure for transport in Belgium. Results are based on data from national accounts (National Accounts Institute, Eurostat) as well as data from Household budget surveys (Statbel).
Planning & Working Papers - WP 01-21 (fr),
The supplementary table 29 of the Eurostat transmission program covers the statutory and occupational pension schemes in social insurance in Belgium. The FPB is charged with the compilation of columns G and H, which include accrued-to-date pension entitlements/liabilities in the statutory pension schemes, representing the present discounted value of accrued-to-date future old-age and survivor pensions of current beneficiaries and future beneficiaries who accumulated pension rights up to the valuation date.
This version of the report of January 2021 is an update of the version originally posted on the FPB website in December 2020. New estimates have been made with the assumption of a fixed discount rate of 2% for the baseline scenario and 1 and 3% for the sensitivity analysis.
Report - REP_12213 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2021 (Feb.) (fr), (nl),
Report - OPREP202101 (fr), (fr), (nl), (nl),
A policy mix of “stick” measures (generalised distance based road charge) and “carrot” measures (supporting carpooling) could induce an increase in the occupation rate of cars in Belgium from 1.44 to 1.50. This relatively modest increase can be explained by the relatively small share of trips for which an increase in the occupation rate is a realistic option, and by the inconveniences linked to the organisation of carpooling. Nevertheless, this policy mix can induce a notable improvement in the traffic situation during the peak periods in the regions that currently suffer the most from congestion.
Articles - Article 006
Articles - Article 007
The 2020-2070 demographic outlook presents the evolution of the population and households in Belgium from 2020 to 2070. In addition to updating future demographic trends, this outlook is built on a specific scenario related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Population growth in 2020 and 2021 will be very moderate, particularly as a result of the impact of COVID on mortality and international migration
Forecasts & Outlook - FOR_DP20_12326 (fr), (nl),
Has the production process of the industries that do the most R&D in Belgium changed over the last 10 years? This analysis attempts to answer this question using both sectoral and company data.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 07-20 (fr), (nl),
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 the three accounts that have been delivered since 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 EW-MFA for the years 2008-2018.
Report - REP_EWMFA2020_12250 (fr), (nl),
In this publication the National Accounts Institute presents the EPEA for the years 2014-2018.
Report - REP_EPEA2020_12249 (fr), (nl),
Report - REP_EGSS2020_12248 (fr), (nl),
Forecasts & Outlook - FOR_ENERGY2020_12251 (fr), (nl),
The aim of this study is to take a step back about teleworking as a tool to tackle mobility issues. Beyond the renewed interest in the public debate from which teleworking benefits, and its strong emphasis since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, the aim here is to use reliable sources and proven models to identify the relationship between increased teleworking and decreased transport demand. To this end, the PLANET model of the Federal Planning Bureau has been adapted to explicitly take into account changes in this practice in its long-term projections.
Planning & Working Papers - WP 06-20 (fr),
The Ageing Working Group was established in December 1999 by the Economic Policy Committee of the European Council ECOFIN. This working group is responsible for producing common budgetary projections on age-related public expenditure items. Each Member State calculates its long-term pension expenditure based on common assumptions.
This report presents the Belgian pension projection 2019-2070 published in the “2021 Ageing Report”. These results will be used in the context of the “Fiscal Sustainability Report” of the European Commission that assesses the mid-term and long-term fiscal situation of Member states.
It should be noted that the demographic and macroeconomic assumptions in the public pension expenditure projection of Belgium for the AWG are different from those retained in the national projection of the Study Committee on Ageing, as well as the scope of pension definition.
Report - REP_COUNTRYFICH2020 (en),
Federal Planning Bureau