In this paper, we estimate the degree of price stickiness in Belgium using the NBB business survey. Compared to similar empirical exercises based on consumer or producer price data, the micro data set used allows us to cover most of the Belgian economy in one exercise and therefore provides a...

This paper aims to document and analyse the use of fixed-term contracts (FTC) and to analyse the dynamics of labour adjustment by type of labour contract at the firm level, drawing on the detailed breakdown of both the labour force and labour entries and exits that are available in the "Belgian...

Temporal distribution of individual price changes is of crucial importance for business cycle theory and for the micro-foundations of price adjustment. While it is routinely assumed that price changes are staggered over time, both theory and evidence are ambiguous. We use a large Belgian data...

Using Logistic Normal regressions, we model the price-setting behaviour for a large sample of Belgian consumer prices over the January 1989 - January 2001 period. Our results indicate that time-dependent features are very important, particularly an infinite mixture of Calvo pricing rules and...

This paper documents patterns of price setting at the retail level in the euro area, summarized in six stylized facts. First, the average euro area monthly frequency of price adjustment is 15 p.c., compared to about 25 p.c. in the US. Second, the frequency of price changes is characterized by...

This paper presents a simple model of state-dependent pricing that allows identifying the relative importance of both nominal and real factors in price rigidity. Using two rich datasets consisting of a large fraction of the price quotes used to compute the Belgian and French Consumer Price...

This paper examines the degree of price rigidity in Belgian consumer prices, using a large database. As to the observed degree of rigidity, the results reveal a substantial amount of heterogeneity, not only across but also within product categories. While prices turn out to be perfectly flexible...

We empirically investigate the effects of the internationalisation of Belgian firms on domestic demand for production and non-production workers, which are used as proxies for unskilled and skilled labour. Distinction is made between home-employment effects of firms’ internationalisation,...

This paper examines whether multinational companies differ in their employment adjustment from domestic firms, on the basis of a panel of Belgian firms for the period 1997-2007. We focus on incumbent firms as, in general, they account for the largest fraction of net employment creation,...

Survey results in 15 European countries for almost 15,000 firms reveal that Belgian firms react more than the average European firm to adverse shocks by reducing permanent and temporary employment. On the basis of a firm-level analysis, this paper confirms that the different reaction to shocks...