This paper investigates the potentially non-linear relation between households' indebtedness and their consumption between 2010 and 2014 in Belgium. To do so, we use panel data from the two waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. Unlike previous studies, we find a negative effect...

In the last few decades, international trade has expanded not only between industrialised countries, but also between high- and low-wage countries. This important change has raised questions on how international trade affects the labour market. In this spirit, this paper aims to investigate the...

We study how unemployment effects the over-indebtedness of households using the new European Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). First, we assess the role of different labor market statuses (i.e. employed, unemployed, disabled, retired, etc.) and other household characteristics...

This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering all the years from 1999 to 2005. Findings show the existence of large wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics...

This paper is one of the first to estimate how the region in which an establishment is located affects its productivity, wage cost and cost competitiveness (i.e. its productivity-wage gap). To do so, we use detailed linked employer-employee panel data for Belgium and rely on methodological...

This article takes advantage of access to confidential matched bank-firm data relative to the Belgian economy to investigate whether and how employment decisions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been affected by credit constraints in the wake of the Great Recession. Variability...

This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering the period 1995-2002. Findings show the existence of large and persistent wage differentials among workers with the same observed...

The labour market situation of low-educated people is particularly critical in most advanced economies, especially among youngsters and women. Policies aiming to increase their employability either try to foster their productivity and/or to decrease their wage cost. Yet, the evidence on the...

This paper complements macroeconomic indicators for macroprudential policy with information from microeconomic survey data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), to identify pockets of risk in the Belgian mortgage market. It takes into account distributional aspects of debt...

This paper investigates the possible labour market and fiscal impacts of labour tax reductions in a typically Belgian setting, i.e. a wage norm regime with automatic price indexing of wages. We consider reductions in employers' social security contributions and fiscal compensation through value...