OECD Economic Surveys : Belgium - Volume 2005 Issue 5.

194 Pages·1.711 MB·English

by  OECD

Belgium V
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Special Features: Preparing for population ageing m
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Enhancing the economic impact of migration
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Economic Surveys Non-Member Economies 5

Australia, February 2005 Baltic States, February 2000
Austria, December 2003 Brazil, February 2005 Belgium
Belgium, May 2005 Bulgaria, April 1999
Canada, December 2004 Chile, November 2003
Czech Republic, January 2005 Romania, October 2002
Denmark, March 2005 Russian Federation, September 2004
Euro area, September 2004 Slovenia, May 1997
Finland, March 2003 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,
France, July 2003 January 2003
Germany, September 2004
Greece, July 2002
Hungary, May 2004
Iceland, April 2005
Ireland, July 2003
Italy, August 2003
Japan, March 2005
Korea, June 2004
Luxembourg, September 2003
Mexico, January 2004
Netherlands, July 2004
New Zealand, January 2004
Norway, June 2004
Poland, July 2004
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Portugal, November 2004
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Slovak Republic, March 2004 C
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Spain, April 2005

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Sweden, March 2004 c
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Switzerland, January 2004
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Turkey, December 2004 o
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United Kingdom, March 2004 ic
United States, May 2004 S
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ISSN 0376-6438
2005 SUBSCRIPTION
(18 ISSUES)
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Volume 2005/5 – May 2005 I1S0B 2N0 0952 -0654 -10 P0864-0 ay 2 Volume 2005/5 – May 2005
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OECD
Economic Surveys
Belgium
2005
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION
AND DEVELOPMENT
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The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TTaabbllee ooff ccoonntteennttss
Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Assessment and recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 1. The policy challenge: preparingforpopulation ageing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The economic and budget consequences of population ageing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A strategy to attenuate the impact of population ageing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The macroeconomic context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Summing up the policy challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 2. Putting public finances onasustainable path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Main issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
The short-term challenge: achieving a small surplus by2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Enhancing the efficiency of public spending. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Annex 2.A1. Key assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter 3. Constraining public health expendituregrowth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Factors driving high growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Policy responses: already initiated and desirable reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 4. Increasing the employment rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Keeping older workers in employment longer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Reducing the high structural unemployment rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Combating unemployment and fostering employment of youngsters . . . . . . . 114
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Chapter 5. Enhancing the economic impact ofmigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Immigration policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Immigrants in the labour market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
The fiscal impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: BELGIUM – ISBN 92-64-00864-0 – © OECD 2005 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 6. Raising achievement insecondaryeducation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
School access, streaming and grade repetition are the major selection
mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Improving the quality and attractiveness of technical and vocational education 150
Reallocating resources to where they are most needed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Fostering teacher and student performance: striking the right balance
between central regulation and autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Chapter 7. Increasing productivity growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Removing barriers to higher productivity growth in ICT-using sectors . . . . . . 156
Increasing product-market competition more generally. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Strengthening the national innovation system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Annex A. Calendar of main economic events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127)
Boxes
1.1. Trends in labour productivity growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.2. Trends in working time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.3. Budget cost of population ageing based onOECDeconomicprojections . . 30
2.1. Public finance recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.2. Measures to reinforce the budgetary process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.1. Constraining public health expenditure growth: policy recommendations 74
4.1. Increasing employment: policy recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.2. Major routes to early withdrawal from the labour market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.3. Measures to increase the employment rate for older workers in Finland,
NewZealand, and the Netherlands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.4. The new procedure of following up on jobseekers’ search efforts . . . . . . . . 109
4.5. The Comprehensive Approach of the Flemish PES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.1. Recommendations to enhance the economic impact of migration . . . . . . . 124
5.2. Work permits in Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.1. Raising achievement in secondary education: policyrecommendations . . 146
6.2. Main features of the non-tertiary education system intheFrench
Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.1. Increasing productivity growth: policy recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
7.2. The product market regulation (PMR) indicator system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
7.3. Administrative burden on start-ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Tables
1.1. Population growth by age group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.2. Contributions to the projected evolution of labour supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4 OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: BELGIUM – ISBN 92-64-00864-0 – © OECD 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.3. Decomposition of long-term economic growth projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.4. Decomposition of hourly labour productivity growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.5. Official long-term economic growth projections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.6. Budget cost of population ageing ? official baseline projections. . . . . . . . . . 29
1.7. Budget cost of population ageing based on OECD economic
projections2003-30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.8. Impact of policy reforms on future participation rates, 2000-50. . . . . . . . . . 35
1.9. Short-term projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.1. Replacement rate for a basic typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2. Projections for total public health care expenditure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.3. Evolution of the structural primary surplus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.4. Maximum implied primary spending growth under different
growth assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5. Origin of newly hired managers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.1. Indicators of supply in the health sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2. Indicators of lifestyle habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.1. The combined influence of ageing and alternative employment rate
hypotheses for the age group 55-64. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2. Income replacement rates in various exit schemes depending
on income levels andfamily situation, 2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.3. Net replacement rates in the initial phase of unemployment, 2002 . . . . . . 106
4.4. Net replacement rates after 60months of unemployment, 2002 . . . . . . . . . 107
4.5. Road distance between provincial capitals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.1. Shares of foreigners in population, main nationalities in2002. . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.2. Labour market status, age and education: Belgians and foreigners, 2003. . 129
5.3. Labour market indicators by nationality, 2001. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.4. Skill structure of the Belgian population aged 25-64 (average1996-2002). . 135
5.5. Employment by sector and nationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.6. Registered independents by nationality, 2002. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.1. Performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy
insecondary education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.2. Proportion of pupils with no year lost in the French andFlemish
communities, 2001-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.3. Rate of degree achievement by branch of education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.1. State control: country scores by domain and sub-domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7.2. State control: values of the low-level indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.3. Barriers to entrepreneurship: country scores by domain andsub-domain. 166
7.4. Barriers to entrepreneurship: values of the low-level indicators . . . . . . . . . 167
7.5. Regulation indices in professional services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Figures
1.1. Old age dependency ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.2. Hourly labour productivity growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.3. Gap in hourly labour productivity levels between Belgium
andtheUnited States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.4. Trend growth in hours worked per person employed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.5. Employment rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.6. Employment rate for the 15-24age group and tertiary attainment . . . . . . . 32
OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: BELGIUM – ISBN 92-64-00864-0 – © OECD 2005 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.7. Employment rate for older workers and employment/unemployment
rates for younger workers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.8. Working time and GDP per capita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.9. Government administration expenditure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.10. Hourly labour productivity gap vis-à-vis the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.11. Contribution of ICT-using services to value added per person engaged . . . . 39
1.12. Labour productivity growth in the distribution and financial sectors. . . . . 40
1.13. Product Market Regulation (PMR) indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.14. GDP growth and the NBB business cycle indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.1. Government financial balances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.2. Public administration employment 2002 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.3. E-government maturity and growth since2001, 2001-04. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.4. State-aid to the railway sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.1. Health expenditures and GDP per capita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2. Average number of doctors’ consultations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.1. Labour market status of persons aged 50-64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2. Change in labour force participation rate of 45-59year old males
andlevel of the output gap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.3. Wages increase steeply with age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.4. Progress in raising the employment rates of older workers hasbeenslow 101
4.5. Unemployment rate by region, age and attainment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.6. Incidence of long-term unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.7. Unemployment and vacancies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.8. Public spending on labour market measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4.9. Few students work and many non-students do not work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.1. Population movement: natural increase, net migration andnaturalisations . 127
5.2. Migration flows by nationality, gross and net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.3. Belgium, recorded immigration, asylum seekers,
andworkpermitsissued. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.4. Prosecutions for irregular employment by sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
7.1. Summary indicators of regulation in retail distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
7.2. Product market regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.3. The PMR indicators system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
7.4. Electricity prices excluding taxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.5. Relative efficiency in railways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
7.6. Rail Liberalisation Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
7.7. R&D spending and patenting are close to EU averages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.8. Educational attainment of the 25- to 64-year-old population (1991-2002). . 179
7.9. Expenditure on tertiary education institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6 OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: BELGIUM – ISBN 92-64-00864-0 – © OECD 2005
BASIC STATISTICS OF BELGIUM, 2003
THE LAND
Area (1 000km2) 30.5 Major urban areas (thousand inhabitants)
Agricultural area (1 000km2) 13.4 Brussels 999.9
Antwerp 944.9
Liège 587.0
Ghent 502.5
THE PEOPLE
Population (thousands) 10396 Total labour force (thousands) 4531
Inhabitants per km2 340 Total domestic employment (thousands): 4124
Net increase (31-12-2003) 40577 Agriculture 97
Net migration (thousands, 31-12-2003) 28 Industry and construction 872
Other 3155
THE PRODUCTION
Gross domestic product (billion euro) 270 Gross domestic product by origin, at market
Gross domestic product per head (USD) 29369 prices (per cent):
Gross fixed investment: Agriculture 1.2
Per cent of GDP 18.9 Industry 18.4
Per head (USD) 5563 Construction 4.5
Other 75.9
THE GOVERNMENT
General government (per cent of GDP): Composition of the House of Representatives
Current expenditure 51.0 (number of seats):
Current revenue 51.3 Liberals 50
Gross debt (31-12-2003) 99.9 Socialists 48
Christian-democrats 28
Ecologists 4
Others 20
Last election: 18.5.2003
THE FOREIGN TRADE
Exports of goods and services Imports of goods and services
(per cent of GDP) 81.6 (per cent of GDP) 77.6
Main exports (per cent of total), Main imports (per cent of total),
SITC, Rev. 3: SITC, Rev. 3:
Iron and steel products (67 + 68) 5.4 Iron and steel products (67 + 68) 4.1
Chemical products (5) 26.7 Chemical products (5) 23.2
Machinery and equipment (71to 77) 13.1 Machinery and equipment (71to 77) 15.7
Textile products (65) 2.7 Textile products (65) 1.6
Transport equipment (78 + 79) 14.2 Transport equipment (78 + 79) 13.0
Energy (3) 8.9
THE CURRENCY
Irrevocable conversion rate: 40.3399 Currency units of euro per USD, average
of daily figures:
Year 0.8852
December2004 0.7454
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Executive summary
T
he dominant challenge for Belgium in the years to come is to prepare for population ageing. This
entails putting in place policies to attenuate its effects on economic growth and public finances. The
few years left before large numbers of baby boomers retire provide a window of opportunity to push
ahead with such policies and so preserve the essential elements of the system of social protection.
First, further budget consolidation is required to put public finances on a sustainable path. Second,
reforms are needed to increase employment rates, especially for the older working age-population,
school leavers and ethnic minorities, and to slow the decline in working time. Finally, reforms are
required to raise productivity growth.
Putting public finances on a sustainable path
The government should implement consolidation measures to improve the structural budget
balance by about 1% of GDP by2007, with the focus being on expenditure restraint. Healthcare
reforms will be needed to contain expenditure growth in the medium term. Should efficiency reforms
fail to constrain adequately the growth in public health expenditure, it will also be necessary for the
authorities to re-consider the public share of healthcare expenditures. Savings on government
expenditure to make room for reducing the high tax rates on labour income should be sought by
increasing the efficiency of government and reducing subsidies. In particular, high public transport
subsidies should be reduced when it becomes feasible to introduce road pricing, also reducing the
economic cost of climate change policies.
Increasing labour utilisation
Belgium has considerable scope to attenuate the effects of population ageing by raising the
currently low employment rate of school leavers, older workers and ethnic minorities and slowing the
decline in working time. This should be mainly achieved by progressively phasing out subsidies for
early retirement (abolishing the older unemployed scheme and making retirement decisions
actuarially neutral) and using budgetary room to reduce the taxes on labour income. Furthermore,
job-search requirements should be more rigorously enforced and active labour market policies
redirected from job creation to job placement. The government should also ease EPL on temporary
employment contracts, lower barriers to student work and seek ways to improve education outcomes
to enable more young people to find a first job. Better education outcomes would also help to improve
labour-market integration of ethnic minorities, and more effective anti-discrimination measures are
required. Successful programmes to improve the language competence of migrant children should be
offered more widely.
Increasing productivity growth
Increasing productivity growth would also attenuate the costs of population ageing. This could
be facilitated by removing barriers to productivity growth in ICT-using sectors (in particular retail
trade and, at the European level, in retail banking), strengthening product market competition and
8 OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: BELGIUM – ISBN 92-64-00864-0 – © OECD 2005
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
refocusing innovation policy. Reaping the benefits from applying more ICT in the distribution sector
will require easing zoning restrictions, simplifying rules on overtime, making shop opening hours
more flexible and widening the scope for temporary work contracts. In retail banking, the Belgian
authorities and their European counterparts should fully implement the Financial Services Action
Plan and apply the four-level “Lamfalussy framework”. The high administrative burden on
entrepreneurship should be reduced. Competition should be increased in the electricity sector by a
series of measures limiting the incumbent’s capacity to abuse its market power. Tertiary education
and research institutions could be made more efficient by increasing inter-university competition and
the share of private contributions. Innovation policy should provide more support for organisational
change, enhance collaboration between business and researchers and foster a broader and more
rapid diffusion of knowledge. This should be complemented by improving the ICT-using competencies
of persons with lower intermediate skills and low education attainment.
OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: BELGIUM – ISBN 92-64-00864-0 – © OECD 2005 9