This paper investigates the factors underlying the dispersion in RULC growth rates across euro area countries. It addresses three main questions. First, how big are RULC growth differentials in EMU by historical perspective? Second, what are the reasons underlying such differentials and why does...

The need to revive Euro area growth highlights the importance of the evolution of domestic and external demand in the core. This paper puts recent demand patterns in France, Germany, and Belgium into historical perspective. We find that, first, dynamics for private consumption, non-residential...

This Working Paper is aimed at describing the current version of Federal Planning Bureau's medium-term macrosectoral model, named HERMES. This model is used to produce on a regular basis medium-term outlooks for the Belgian economy. In addition to the main macroeconomic aggregates (GDP, private...

This working paper describes the new version of MODTRIM II, the FPB's quarterly macroeconomic model for short-term forecasting. The short-term forecasts are published three times a year and are referred to as the “economic budget”, as they are used by the federal government to set up its...