News
Press releases
Events
The last five databases
Publications
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 the EU and the US, between 1970 and 2005, based on a consistent data set. The growth accounting methodology is applied to explain value added and labour productivity growth for the total economy, manufacturing and market services. This decomposition exercise diverges from what has been applied in Belgium up to now, as it uses capital services flows rather than the capital stock and labour services flows rather than the number of hours worked to measure the contribution of these factors of production to economic and productivity growth. Contributions of the main industries to value added, employment and productivity growth are also estimated.
Working Papers - Working Paper 17-08 (en),
Using dynamic panel data on 20 Belgian market sectors over 1987-2005, the paper analyses the link between Multifactor Productivity (MFP) growth and three frequently cited determinants: business R&D, labour skills and ICT use. The theoretical framework of the analysis is given by the Aghion-Howitt model which explains the rate of MFP growth by the distance to the world technology frontier.
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-08 (en), (fr),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-08 (fr),
In order to improve our understanding of the divergent evolutions that recently emerged between European countries in terms of labour productivity, this paper compares the labour productivity growth of three small open European countries: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. The analysis focuses on market services as they are the most important single factor that is responsible for the divergences. The comparison shows that, while Austria and Belgium recorded a decrease in their productivity growth between 1995 and 2004, the Netherlands followed the American pattern and has recorded an increase in their growth rate since 1995. The decomposition of labour productivity growth makes it possible to underline the important role played by total factor productivity (TFP) in the Dutch upsurge in productivity growth. The breakdown of the data by industry shows the importance of the Distribution sector in the Dutch performance. The growth of TFP observed in the Distribution sector is then linked to different potential determinants: ICT accumulation and use, labour qualifications, R&D and innovation and regulations.
Working Papers - Working Paper 14-07 (en),
To improve our understanding of the divergent evolutions that recently emerged between European countries in terms of labour productivity, this working paper compares the labour productivity growth of three small open European countries: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. The analysis focuses on market services as they are the most important single factor that is responsible for the divergences.
Articles - Article 2007100507
The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the main drivers of economic growth and productivity evolution in Belgium between 1970 and 2004, based on a consistent data set. The growth accounting methodology is applied to explain value added and labour productivity growth for total economy, manufacturing and market services. This decomposition exercise diverges from what has been applied in Belgium up to now, as it uses capital services flows rather than capital stock to measure the contribution of capital factor to production growth. Contributions of the main industries to value added, employment and productivitygrowth are also estimated.
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-07 (en),
This paper presents the methodology for the compilation of a time series of supply and use tables for Belgium in current and constant prices for the period 1995-2002. These data have been produced at the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau within the framework of the EUKLEMS project and constitute an input for the project’s productivity database. The compilation of the time series was based on national accounts data and existing supply and use tables. The methodology consisted in splitting several industries and products, adapting existing data to the latest national accounts revisions, estimating missing tables as well as deflating current price supply and use tables.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-07 (en),
This Working Paper presents the different methodologies currently used to construct a volume index of capital services and analyzes the effects of methodological changes on capital services and total factor productivity estimates for Belgium over the period 1970-2004. The measurement of capital services is realized in two steps. First, productive capital stocks have to be estimated for each type of asset. Two methodologies are generally used: the geometric and the hyperbolic profile. Secondly, these stocks are aggregated, using the user costs of capital (exante or ex-post approach) as weights to derive an overall index. For the economy as a whole and the entire period, under an ex-post approach, the volume indices of capital services estimated with a hyperbolic age-efficiency profile grow at a higher rate than the indices estimated with a geometric profile. This general conclusion is, however, not observed in every sector. Under an ex-ante approach, the different volume indices are quite similar for the whole economy, even if the indices grow generally at a slightly higher rate in the case of a geometric pattern. A higher growth rate of the volume indices generates a higher capital contribution and, consequently, a lower TFP contribution. Over long periods of time, the different TFP estimates are relatively similar. Over shorter periods, the different methodologies generate more significant variations in the TFP contribution.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-07 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-07 (nl),
The Lisbon Strategy has been launched by the European Council to promote long-term economic growth under the conditions of sufficient social and environmental protection. It builds on three pillars: the macroeconomic, the microeconomic and the labour market pillar. In this planning paper the microeconomic pillar and its implementation in Belgium is reviewed. The paper consists of four chapters, each covering a specific theme that concerns the microeconomic pillar.
Articles - Article 2006121801
The object of this article is to present the Belgian action plan on investing in knowledge and innovation and the main measures already taken as explained in the 2006 Belgian progress report to the National Reform Programme (www.be2010.eu). The FPB participates in the preparation of these reports.
Articles - Article 2006121803
In Belgium, as well as in other European countries, the use of R&D tax incentives has become more popular in recent years. It remains, however, important to evaluate the effectiveness of those new and existing measures.
Articles - Working Paper 06-06
This working paper analyses public financing in two countries that have already reached the Barcelona goal (R&D expenditure on GDP at least equal to 3%), Finland and Sweden, and compares it with the situation in Belgium. This comparison covers not only the quantitative aspects but also the organisational dimension of the public support for innovation.
Working Papers - Working paper 09-06 (mix),
Closed series - Planning Paper 101 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-06 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 13-05 (fr), (nl),
In 2004, economic growth in Belgium amounted to 2.7% (GDP at constant prices), which is higher than the euro area average due to the strength of Belgian domestic demand. The economic recovery, triggered by an improvement in the international business climate from mid-2003 onwards, resulted in quarter-on-quarter growth rates between 0.7% and 0.8%, but weakened to 0.4% in the last quarter of 2004.
Economic growth should gain momentum during the course of this year, which is mainly due to the quarterly profile of exports. In fact, export growth should temporarily weaken during the first half of this year due to lower foreign demand growth and the appreciation of the euro during the last two quarters of 2004, which hampers competitiveness with respect to the other currency areas. Private con-sumption (+1.8%) should increase at a faster pace than purchasing power (+1.4%) for the third con-secutive year. Stimulated by the ongoing recovery of business profitability, low interest rates and gradually improving demand prospects, real business investment growth should strengthen to 3.3% this year. All in all, GDP growth at constant prices should reach 2.2% in 2005. Inflation should re-main rather stable at 2.0%.
Employment should increase by 34,400 units this year, as compared to 28,600 in 2004. As the labour force should increase at about the same pace in 2005, the unemployment rate should stabilise this year. The employment rate should rise slightly from 61.8% in 2004 to 62.1% in 2005.
Closed series - Short Term Update 01-05 (en),
Following the Lisbon strategy designed to transform the European economy into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society, the Barcelona Summit quantified one of the available instruments to reach this ambitious objective by fixing the amount of resources which have to be devoted to r&d by 2010, at 3% of the European gdp.
What could be the implications of the Barcelona objective in terms of the main economic variables for Belgium and the eu? What are the needs for human capital to reach this objective? How are these needs covered by the current trends in the supply of qualified labour in Belgium? These are the main questions analysed in the present working paper.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-05 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-04 (fr),
The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of information and communications technology (ict) on economic performance at the sectoral level in Belgium over the period 1990-2000. The growth accounting approach used in the framework of the neoclassical growth theory for the study of the sources of economic growth will be adopted here in order to quantify the impact of ict use on output and labour productivity growth. Since annual data on ict capital stock are not readily available, we use data from a number of sources to construct this indicator at the sector level for Belgium over the period 1990-2000. Our findings should indicate (i) to which extent ict contributed to output and labour growth at the sectoral level in Belgium in the 1990s and (ii) whether industries making intensive use of ict performed better then non-intensive ict ones over the same period.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-04 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 21-03 (fr),
Other publications - IT 01-2003 (fr), (nl),
In the empirical literature, the missing link between ict investments and increa-ses in firm performance is organisational change. This paper aims to assess the impact of ict at firm-level in Belgium, by means of case studies with 220 firms in four sectors: banking, machinery, printing/publishing and transport. The chosen sectors were ict-intensive in 1995, have enjoyed productivity growth during the 1995-2000 period and were probably ready for reorganisation at the time of the interviews.
Working Papers - Working Paper 08-03 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-03 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-02 (nl),
Federal Planning Bureau
