Over the last couple of decades, there has been a large scale reorganisation of manufacturing production processes within global value chains. This has been achieved through fragmentation and offshoring. Fostered by the fall in coordination costs due to information and communication technology...

This article presents a traditional shift-share decomposition to identify contributions of three effects on the rise in the hourly wage cost in Belgium: changes in the industry composition of total hours worked (composition effect), changes in the structure of employment in terms of categories...

Users of Supply and Use Tables (SUT) and Input-Output Tables (IOT) compiled in different national accounts (NA) vintages face a problem of consistency of their data due to revisions in the NA. This paper describes the methodology that has been followed to compile a consistent time series of...

A major concern regarding the consequences of offshoring is about the labour market position of low‐skilled workers. This paper provides evidence for Belgium that offshoring has had a negative impact on the employment share of low‐skilled workers in the manufacturing sector between 1995 and...

Over the last couple of decades, trade liberalisation has progressed and environmental regulations have become more stringent, in particular regarding emissions of air pollution. This has raised the fear in developed countries that emission-intensive activities are increasingly carried out...

This Working Paper presents the methodology the Federal Planning Bureau currently utilizes to draw up the Belgian household projections by 2060. This methodology allows for detailed projections of the number of households (at the district level) by household type and according to the factual...

In 2012 ever growing prices of electricity and natural gas compelled the federal governmentto take measures to better control these prices, and thus improve Belgian competitiveness. This studyexplores the evolution of the prices of electricity and natural gas for enterprises in Belgium and...

The working paper compares the financial structure of non-financial companies by branch between 2007 and 2010. In particular, the analysis focuses on the financial fragility of branches. It also tries to determine whether the problems faced by entreprises during the 2008-2010 period can partly...