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 this paper, the tools and methods currently used at the FPB are classified in three groups: national models; international models; and other tools and methods. The listed FPB’s instruments are used to produce analyses and projections in a wide range of areas: business cycle analyses and short-term forecasting, macro-sectoral analyses and medium-term outlook, long-term projections and the issue of ageing, intersectoral relationships, international economics, labour market analyses, public finance, demographic analyses, transport economics, energy market analyses, environmental issues and sustainable development. This paper gives only a bird’s-eye view of the most important tools and methods. At the end of each instrument’s description, references to a short-list of technical papers, applications and to FPB contact addresses can be found.
Articles - WP 07-06
Two Working Papers on the macroeconomic impact of network industry reform have been published. The first is a detailed report in Dutch, the second a summary paper in English. The analysis builds on a simulation by FPB’s macroeconometric model HERMES, and a simulation by IMF’s general equilibrium model GEM. Although both simulations were based on the same exogenous input, they gave significantly different outcomes. This sheds light on the applicability of different modelling approaches to an issue at hand.
Articles - WP 08-06 / 10-06
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.
Articles - WP 09-06
The August 2006 issue of the NIME Outlook for the World Economy presents a 2006-2012 macroeconomic outlook for the major areas of the world. The outlook was produced using nime, the Federal Planning Bureau’s macroeconometric world model. The August 2006 issue also features a stochastic evaluation of the projection’s main results for the euro area, for the group of countries comprising Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom, for the US and for Japan.
Articles - NIME 2006 - AUG
Within the Belgian National Accounts Institute, the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB) has been assigned responsibility for the environmental satellite accounts. One of these accounts is the National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts for Air pollution (NAMEA Air). The NAMEA Air for Belgium currently contains data on greenhouse gas emissions, acidifying emissions, photochemical emissions, emissions of fine dust particles and emissions of lead for 1990 and for the period 1994-2002. The air pollutant that has received the most attention over the last decade is, without any doubt, carbon dioxide, the emissions of which are closely linked to energy use. This special topic investigates the driving forces behind the changes in CO2 emissions by the Belgian industries by means of decomposition analysis. Emissions by households are thus not considered. The industries were responsible for the largest part of Belgian CO2 emissions, more specifically 76%, in 2002. In that year, CO2 emissions represented 87% of total greenhouse gas emissions covered by the Kyoto protocol.
Articles - Article 2006051901
After the compromise that was reached at the European Council of December 2005, the European Parliament finally approved, on 17 May 2006, the European budget for the next seven years (the Financial Perspective 2007-2013).
Articles - WP 03-06
This Working Paper presents the methodology and results of a stochastic simulation evaluation of the risks related to the medium-term world economic outlook produced using the Federal Planning Bureau’s NIME model in January 2006. The results include confidence intervals around a baseline projection for the euro area, the United States and Japan, as well as probability estimates for specific occurrences.
Articles - WP 02-06
This working paper assesses the impact of the oil price shock on the Belgian economy and tries to explain why the impact has been very limited when compared to the oil price shocks in the seventies.
Articles - WP 01-06
Price regulation has for a long time existed in a limited number of sectors in Belgium. The paper gives an overview of the legislation in this area and looks in particular at the sectors of over-the-counter medicines and old people’s homes. It describes the system and proposes a number of changes to the regulatory framework.
Articles - WP 19-05
The January 2006 issue of the NIME Economic Outlook (NEO) for the World Economy presents a 2006-2012 macroeconomic outlook for the major areas of the world. The outlook was produced using NIME, the Federal Planning Bureau’s macroeconometric world model. The January 2006 issue also features an assessment of the response of the euro area economy to a shift away from the direct taxation of labour towards the indirect taxation of final demand.
Articles - NIME 2006 - JAN
In response to the Council of Ministers and in collaboration with the Dienst voor Administratieve Vereenvoudiging/Agence pour la Simplification Administrative, the FPB has estimated the cost of the administrative burden for companies and self-employed persons in 2004. The estimation of the administrative burden is based on a national survey and uses the same methodology as the one used in the surveys carried out for the years 2000 and 2002. Businesses are invited to make their own assessment of the administrative burden imposed by three areas of legislation: environmental, employment and tax legislation. The Planning Paper analyses the results of the 2004 survey and compares them with the results of the two previous surveys.
Articles - PP 100
Many questions about the directions in which our societies develop require answers from the authorities. Guiding this development requires an overall vision of the situation, which can be obtained by systematically organising the available social, environmental, economic and political information. The third Belgian Federal Report on Sustainable Development proposes such a comprehensive systemic model for describing and analysing how a given society develops.
Articles - Sust dev Report 2002
This Working Paper presents the 2005-2011 macroeconomic outlook for the major areas of the world. The outlook was produced using NIME, the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau’s (FPB) macroeconometric world model and builds on the Autumn 2004 short-term Economic Forecasts made by the European Commission for the year 2004. The Working Paper also features an assessment of the progress made towards the Lisbon goals for growth and employment in the euro area. The major technical assumptions of this outlook as well as a description of the NIME model are presented in an appendix to the Working Paper.
Articles - Article 2005030703
In July 2003 the Belgian federal government’s Policy Declaration expressed its intention to assess its sustainable development policy. This Working Paper aims to facilitating this, by delivering a timely evaluation of both the implementation of the first two Federal Plans for Sustainable Development and the Federal strategic policy process in which these plans are elaborated, implemented and monitored. The last part of the Paper describes the strategies for sustainable development at other Belgian and international policy levels, including partnerships for sustainable development. The Belgian Federal Strategy for Sustainable Development is a learning process. The federal authorities have taken important steps to put sustainable development into practice. This paper shows that improvements are necessary and points out where they are possible.
Articles - Article 2005030702
This Working Paper describes, with a sustainable development approach, the relationships between the production patterns' evolution and the state of the human capital in Belgium with an international perspective. Human capital is defined here as occupational and environmental health, as well as knowledge and capacities. The Driving forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework is used to understand and analyse these relationships. The Paper also presents the political initiatives developed to promote more sustainable production patterns and to strengthen the human capital.
Articles - Article 2005030701
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