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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.
In the framework of the election costing exercise the impact on the distribution of disposable income is measured for a number of measures proposed by political parties. Administrative micro-data are used for this exercise. This approach allows that the impact of the measures studied is reported at the level of individual or household characteristics. The policy measures whose impact on the distribution of disposable income is calculated are measures situated within the domain of social security and social assistance, supplemented by the regulations on family allowances, the contribution rules applied to these benefits and the rules on personal income tax. The tool used for these calculations is the microsimulation model EXPEDITION. The present paper describes the main features of the EXPEDITION model and illustrates its operation on the basis of two simulations.
Working Papers - DC2024_WP_03 (fr), (nl),
This report shows that minimum regulations (minimum pensions and the minimumright per career year) and pension credits diminish pension inequality between men and women. If we assume that there are no minimum regulations, the pension gap would be 37% instead of 31%. If we assume that pension credits are not granted, the gap would be 43% instead of 31%. The pension credit part-time work with maintenance of pension rights, one specific type of pension credit, has a limited impact. Without this pension credit, the pension gap would increase with 0.4 percentage points.
Reports - REP_12936 (nl),
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%.
Reports - REP_12783 (fr), (nl),
For the projection of social sustainability indicators, the Federal Planning Bureau uses the dynamic microsimulation model MIDAS, which has recently undergone a major revision. In this working paper we report a projection up to 2070 of poverty risks and income inequality among the elderly, pensioners and the population under 65 years, in a scenario with current pension policies and projected demographic and socio-economic evolutions.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-23 (nl),
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.
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-23 (nl), (nl),
Reports - REP_Pension_202201 (fr), (nl),
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.
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-21 (nl),
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.
Working Papers - Working Paper 04-21 (nl),
This Working Paper identifies the characteristics that explain severe material deprivation in Belgium, while making a distinction between people aged below 65 and those aged 65 or above. Severe material deprivation has decreased for both groups. Young people are more impacted than the elderly. Although there is a clear link between income and deprivation, the overlap between individuals identified as at risk of poverty and those as severely deprived is far from perfect. The correlation between income poverty and deprivation is weaker for the old group than for the young.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-19 (en),
The Federal Planning Bureau has developed within the Nowcasting project a dynamic microsimulation model for nowcasting and medium-term forecasts (currently up to 2020) of indicators of poverty and social exclusion. Key messages of this project are that nowcasting and medium-term forecasting are now possible using a fully dynamic microsimulation model. The provisional results of the model suggest that the overall poverty risk would remain stable, but that of the 65+ subpopulation would decrease over time, while that of the younger population would show a small increase. Furthermore, the increase of overall ine-quality would come to a halt and the level of inequality would become more stable. Finally, the very low work intensity rate would continue its decrease, driven by the continuing increase of the employment rate among the working-age population.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-19 (en),
In preparation of the 2018 Pension Adequacy Report by the European Commission and the Social Protection Committee, teams from Belgium, Sweden and Italy use their microsimulation models to simulate the possible developments of pension adequacy while taking into account the set of economic and demographic projections developed by the AWG. The results of this exercise complement the AWG simulations of pension expenditures in a context of demographic. The results described in detail in this report were summarised in section 5.1.2. of the 2018 Pension Adequacy Report.
Reports - REP_11732 (en),
This Working Paper analyses various alternative population projections. The first approach shows the impact of alternative future development scenarios for the population growth components. The effects of some of these scenarios on the development in social expenditure and the at-risk-of-poverty rate for pensioners are also analysed. The second approach consists in carrying out a sensitivity analysis of the population projection to some model parameters, in particular the observation periods selected to estimate trends.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-18 (fr),
This Working Paper presents, on the basis of information available until July 2016, a projection at unchanged policy until 2030 of the population at risk of poverty or social exclusion in Belgium, as defined in the framework of the Europe 2020 Strategy. This population should amount to 2.232 million people in 2018, or 418 000 more than the Europe 2020 target. By 2030, its share should shrink to 16.1%, still 5.6 percentage points higher than the goal resulting from the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Working Papers - Working Paper 12-16 (en), (fr), (nl),
Reports - OPREP201605 (mix), (mix),
This report presents the results of an impact assessment of an increase in the social integration allowance (assistance scheme). The study which was commissioned by the State Secretary responsible for poverty reduction consists of two parts, on the one hand, an assessment of the macroeconomic and budgetary effects, including the possible return effects, of the increase and, on the other hand, an estimate of its impact on the poverty risk.
Reports - OPREP201512 (mix), (mix),
Since a couple of decades, the pension policy of member states is a focal point of attention on the European level. Securing financial sustainability by the AWG requires a prospective vision on ageing, labour market developments and social policy. But a sensible assessment of financial sustainability cannot do without taking into account the prospect ive development of pension adequacy. The SPC does this through prospective theoretical replacement rates and benefit ratios. However, prospective values of the key ISG indicators, such as the risk of poverty rate or the Gini are not available.
Reports - REP_SIMUBESEHU0515 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 06-13 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 22-10 (mix),
In the context of the European-funded sixth framework project, "Adequacy of Old-Age Income Maintenance in the EU (AIM)", a dynamic microsimulation model has been developed for Belgium, Germany and Italy. This model, called MIDAS, simulates future developments in the adequacy of pensions in Belgium, Italy and Germany, following wherever possible the projections and assumptions of the Ageing Working Group.
Articles - Article 2009030205
In the context of a European-funded sixth framework project called AIM, a dynamic microsimulation model MIDAS is being developed for Belgium, Germany and Italy. This is a joint effort by three institutions, the German DIW, the Italian ISAE and the Belgian FPB. This model MIDAS simulates future developments of the adequacy of pensions, following wherever possible the projections and assumptions of the Ageing Working Group. This paper describes the model MIDAS in detail. It next presents and discusses some simulation results for Belgium, Germany and Italy. Finally, the simulation results of two alternative policy scenarios are presented and discussed.
Other publications - MIDAS 0901 (en),
In 2005, the federal government presented the ‘Generation Pact’, containing a number of measures designed to strengthen the financial sustainability of the Belgian system of social security in the light of demographic ageing. One of these measures, the introduction of a pension bonus, is designed to encourage older workers to postpone retirement. This working paper discusses the effect of this bonus on the financial consequences of retirement simulated for four fictitious older workers, representing various types of workers.
Articles - Working Paper 11-06
Working Papers - Working Paper 11-06 (nl),
The Belgian Study Group on Ageing of the High Council of Finance, in its Annual Report, publishes the results of research on the budgetary and social effects of ageing. In this context, the Federal Planning Bureau, in its capacity as secretariat and main research body of the Committee, has in recent years been stepping up its efforts to deve lop models based on socioeconomic micro data. The results of one of these models, de signed to make short-term projections of poverty indicators, are presented in this paper.
Working Papers - Working paper 05-06 (en),
Other publications - OPVERG200601 - Report (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 15-05 (nl),
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