Working Paper 06-03 - MODTRIM II : A quarterly model for the Belgian economy

Since 1994 the Federal Planning Bureau has been using the annual version of the econometric model modtrim as a central tool to produce its short-term macroeconomic forecasts. At the origin of the project, and as its name indicates, this annual version was meant to be short-lived and quickly replaced by a quarterly version. Unfortunately, the lack of quarterly national accounts prevented from doing so for several years. In 1998, the Institute for National Accounts published official quarterly accounts for the first time and the construction of the quarterly version of the model started in Spring 2000. On that occasion, the opportunity was taken to reassess all behavioural equations of the model. The more limited availability of quarterly data, in comparison with annual data, implied that a more aggregated version of the accounting framework of the yearly model had to be constructed.

Working paper 04-06 - Fiscal councils, independent forecasts and the budgetary process: lessons from the Belgian case

This paper describes the operating mode of the two existing Belgian fiscal councils as well as their role in the budgetary planning process. These institutions, created or reformed in depth in a context of large public deficits and increasing public debt-to-GDP ratios coupled with the regionalization of the Belgian state, are the result of a maturing process. The National Accounts Institute covers the positive side of the budgetary process, while the High Council of Finance deals with the normative side. Concerning the former domain, the creation of an independent institution to provide unbiased forecasts undeniably contributed to the consolidation of public finances in Belgium. In the context of the revised Stability and Growth Pact, lessons drawn from the Belgian experience can certainly be useful for other Member States willing to improve their fiscal institutional settings. Our chief recommendations for making the budgetary process successful are: institutions dealing with positive economics should enjoy a fully independent status but remain public; positive and normative issues should be completely separated from an institutional point of view; and responsibility should be shared between several strong independent institutions so as to minimize political pressure.Fiscal institution, Budgetary Process, Forecast accuracy

Working Paper 10-08 - The PLANET Model: Methodological Report

Freight and passenger transport model, Transport externalities

Working Paper 01-11 - Analyse van de horecasector in België

This Working Paper gives an overall picture of the horeca industry in Belgium. The study focuses in particular on aspects of business demography, the importance of the sector for the Belgian economy, its development since the mid‐nineties and the financial health of horeca companies. Since the provision of horeca services is a very labour‐intensive activity, special  attention is paid to employment features.Sectoral analyses, Input-output tables

Diffuse pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia of the breast: a case report and a review of the radiological characteristics

Pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia is a benign mesenchymal tumor of the breast. It is a rare condition and until a few years mainly described in pathological and surgical literature. Here, we provide a case report of PASH and an overview of its radiological features

Things Are Getting Hairy: Enterobacteria Bacteriophage vB_PcaM_CBB

Enterobacteria phage vB_PcaM_CBB is a jumbo phage belonging to the family Myoviridae. It possesses highly atypical whisker-like structures along the length of its contractile tail. It has a broad host range with the capability of infecting species of the genera Erwinia, Pectobacterium, and Cronobacter. With a genome of 355,922 bp, excluding a predicted terminal repeat of 22,456 bp, phage CBB is the third largest phage sequenced to date. Its genome was predicted to encode 554 ORFs with 33 tRNAs. Based on prediction and proteome analysis of the virions, 29% of its predicted ORFs could be functionally assigned. Protein comparison shows that CBB shares between 3338% of its proteins with Cronobacter phage GAP32, coliphages PBECO4 and 121Q as well as Klebsiella phage vB_KleM_Rak2. This work presents a detailed and comparative analysis of vB_PcaM_CBB of a highly atypical jumbo myoviridae phage, contributing to a better understanding of phage diversity and biology.Funding was provided by Cork Institute of Technology as a PhD fellowship to CB

Non-canonical DNA transcription enzymes and the conservation of two-barrel RNA polymerases

DNA transcription depends on multimeric RNA polymerases that are exceptionally conserved in all cellular organisms, with an active site region of >500 amino acids mainly harboured by their Rpb1 and Rpb2 subunits. Together with the distantly related eukaryotic RNA-dependent polymerases involved in gene silencing, they form a monophyletic family of ribonucleotide polymerases with a similarly organized active site region based on two double-Ψ barrels. Recent viral and phage genome sequencing have added a surprising variety of putative nucleotide polymerases to this protein family. These proteins have highly divergent subunit composition and amino acid sequences, but always contain eight invariant amino acids forming a universally conserved catalytic site shared by all members of the two-barrel protein family. Moreover, the highly conserved ‘funnel’ and ‘switch 2’ components of the active site region are shared by all putative DNA-dependent RNA polymerases and may thus determine their capacity to transcribe double-stranded DNA templates