The financial crisis that erupted during 2007 and intensified in 2008 and the ensuing economic recession led to a serious deterioration in the public finances of most advanced economies. That resulted in a sharp increase in the fiscal deficit and public debt in those countries, including...

In 2013, the total tax burden in the euro area was almost back to the level prevailing at the beginning of the century. The financial and economic crisis had initially led to a reduction in the tax burden, but fiscal consolidation has generated a rise in revenue. However, there is no general...

The paper analyses participation in and contributions to the third pillar of the pension system by Belgian households. This pillar represents individual saving for retirement and has been growing rapidly. A detailed dataset of tax declarations over the period from 1993 until 2003 was used to...

The open character of the Belgian economy is also reflected in its financial relations with other countries. At the end of 2007, Belgium’s net foreign assets totalled around 44.4 p.c. of GDP. In the past decade, Belgium’s net financial assets have shown a marked increase, against the...

For the greater part of 2010, short-term and long-term interest rates in Belgium were at exceptionally low levels. Nominal interest rates reached historic lows ; in real terms, only the low point of 1974 remained unequalled. The yield curve was in turn relatively steep. In the first place, the...

At a time of a consolidation and an increasing internationalisation of the distributive trade sector, three major phenomena have been simultaneously altering the structure of euro area trade for several years now : the success of hard discounters, the emergence of private-label products, and the...

Input-output tables (IOT) offer a comprehensive view of an economy, describing supply and demand flows according to activity branches, including flows between these branches, i.e. intermediate consumption. Based on the latest published IOT, i.e. over the year 2000, this article develops the...

To mark the introduction, in January 2006, of a new national index of consumer prices (NICP) in Belgium and almost 10 years of application of the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) at the European level, the article highlights recent methodological developments regarding the two...

Over the past three years, it has gradually become clear that consumer gas and electricity prices in Belgium are much more volatile than elsewhere in the euro area or in the three main neighbouring countries. The article first of all examines whether recent methodological changes to the...

While both the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999 and the introduction of the euro banknotes and coins in January 2002 actually went remarkably smooth, the introduction of the euro gave rise to a very lively debate regarding its impact on inflation. Indeed, the vast majority of...