The Belgian economy still faces high regional unemployment rates while our companies lose market share on international markets. A more attractive economic framework is a precondition to launch new activities and to create more jobs.
The Itinera Institute offers interested readers a selection of recent and topical publications and presentations from external sources, with a relevant angle towards the Institute’s key issues for Belgium. The selection is updated regularly and readers have the opportunity to stay on track through RSS for each issue. The selection in no way reflects a policy preference on behalf of the institute and is done for information purposes only.
Suggestions for publications or presentations are welcome and can be sent to info@itinerainstitute.org
Privatization and changes in the wage structure
21 November 2008
| With the financial crisis and the government’s subsequent increased role in the economy, the question whether to privatize firms or not is certainly as relevant now as it was under Thatcher. The first to be affected by those kinds of decisions are the workers of the considered firms. This IZA publication for example found that wage and wage growth distributions widened significantly after privatization. The central questions really remain however who the winners and the losers are and why? |
Brussels’ economic paradox
10 November 2008
| Economically, our capital seems to suffer from schizophrenia. On the one hand it accommodates the headquarters of Belgium’s most important businesses and the European institutions, but on the other hand Brussels is also known for its economic and social problems. This report gives an overview on Brussels’ key poverty indicators such as unemployment and housing, and notices that there are important differences between the municipalities of the Brussels region. Can this be related with the extra complicated fragmentation of competences in our capital city? |
Fiscal reform: impact on the consumption of Belgian households
10 November 2008
| The objective of the fiscal reform introduced in 2002 by the government Verhofstadt II was to reduce Belgian households’ taxes in order to stimulate Belgium’s macroeconomic activity. But has this fiscal policy yielded the expected results? This study from Regards Economiques of October 2008 analyses to which extend Belgian households’ consumption was influenced by this reform. |
R&D: Europe progresses, but the efforts need to be pursued
03 November 2008
| According to the 2008 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard of the European Commission, with 8,8 %, companies of the EU show for the first time a stronger growth of the R&D investments than their Americans counterparts (8,6 %). The research intensity, that is the ratio between R&D and net sales, stays nevertheless very superior in the United States, where it establishes, on average at 4,5 % against 2,7 % in Europe. Besides, the R&D of the private sector in Europe represents only 1 % of the gross domestic product, what would indicate that an increasing part of the investments in R&D of the European firms is made outside the Union. We get closer to the Lisbon objectives, but the efforts need to be pursued to hope reaching them. |
Belgium is economically free but less than one year ago
24 October 2008
| Belgium’s economy is 71.5 percent free according to the Economic Freedom Index 2008, which makes it the world’s 20th and Europe’s 10th freest economy. This is a 0.9 percentage point decrease from last year, primarily reflecting increased government spending. Contrary to common thoughts, it is emphasized that creating a Business in Belgium is easy and fast, but it is also recalled that income as well as company taxes are amongst the World’s highest. This can be a serious handicap in an ever-more globalizing world.
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