The aim of this study is to give an overview of recent developments in Belgium's direct investment relations with the rest of the world. The analysis is based mainly on two sets of statistics drawn up by the National Bank of Belgium, namely, data on direct investment flows from the balance of...

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...

This paper explores a newly-available panel data set merging balance sheet and international trade transaction data for Belgium. Both imports and exports appear to be highly concentrated among few firms and seem to have become more so over time. Focusing on manufacturing, we find that facts...

Keynesian economics dominated economic thought and macroeconomic policy-making in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the diffusion of Keynesian economics has been uneven. In this paper, we compare the spread of Keynesian economics in two continental European countries: Belgium and Italy. We focus on...

This paper documents producer price setting in 6 countries of the euro area: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Portugal. It collects evidence from available studies on each of those countries and also provides new evidence. These studies use monthly producer price data. The following...

The economic impact of the port sector is usually measured at an aggregate level by indicators such as value added, employment and investment. This paper tries to define the economic relevance for the regional as well as for the national economy at a disaggregate level. It attempts to identify,...

Since 1 June 2003 the file of the Central Office for Credits to Private Individuals has recorded information relating to all consumer credits and mortgage loans contracted by natural persons for private purposes, as well as any payment defaults resulting from these loans. This registration aims...

The Belgian pharmaceutical sector has been accorded a leading role in the attainment of the R&D investment targets which the EU Member States set themselves as part of the Lisbon strategy. To gain a better insight into that sector's research activities, the NBB conducted an ad hoc survey in...

This study examines managerial disciplining in poorly performing firms using large panels for Belgian, French, German and UK firms. We consider the monitoring role of large blockholders, the market for share blocks, creditors, and non-executive directors. Board restructuring is correlated to...

In Belgium unemployment insurance benefits can only exhaust for one category of workers: partners of workers with (replacement) labour income (mostly women) may loose their entitlement after an unemployment duration ranging from two to eight years, depending on individual characteristics. We...