Temporal distribution of individual price changes is of crucial importance for business cycle theory and for the microfoundations 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 set...

Using Logistic Normal regressions, we model the price-setting behaviour for a large sample of Belgian consumer prices over the January 1989 - January 2001 period. Our results indicate that time-dependent features are very important, particularly an infinite mixture of Calvo pricing rules and...

This paper presents a simple model of state-dependent pricing that allows identification of the relative importance of the degree of price rigidity that is inherent to the price setting mechanism (intrinsic) and that which is due to the price’s driving variables (extrinsic). Using two data...

The economic and financial crisis has meant sizeable employment losses that resulted from different adjustment mechanisms in domestic firms and multinational companies. This may be due to either production plant closures or downsizing by firms that remain active. This paper evaluates the...

Based on a reduced-form state-dependent pricing model with random thresholds, we specify and estimate a nonlinear panel data model with an unobserved factor representing the common cost or demand components of the unobserved optimal price. Using this model, we are able to assess the relative...

We empirically investigate the effects of the internationalisation of Belgian firms on domestic demand for production and non-production workers, which are used as proxies for unskilled and skilled labour. Distinction is made between home-employment effects of firms’ internationalisation,...

This paper examines whether multinational companies differ in their employment adjustment from domestic firms, on the basis of a panel of Belgian firms for the period 1997-2007. We focus on incumbent firms as, in general, they account for the largest fraction of net employment creation,...

In this paper, we estimate the degree of price stickiness in Belgium using the NBB Business survey. Based on our estimates, 19.2% of prices are changed each month. The manufacturing sector and the trade sectors are characterized by a frequency of price changes close to 24.5%. The construction...

The article summarises the scientific contributions and discussions at the 2014 conference organised by the NBB on “Total factor productivity : measurement, determinants and impacts”. At this conference, six original contributions were presented and discussed. They addressed the following...