CARIFORUM and UK EPA Study

Total labor force: Labor force comprises people ages 15 and older who supply labor for the production of goods and services during a specified period. It includes people who are currently employed and people who are unemployed but seeking work as well as first-time job-seekers. Not everyone who works is included, however. Unpaid workers, family workers, and students are often omitted, and some countries do not count members of the armed forces. Labor force size tends to vary during the year as seasonal workers enter and leave (World Bank) Openness Openness is a measure of trade liberalization, in relative terms of the countries in the study; alternatively, it is the trade of each of the countries with the rest of the world as a relative share of regional trade with the rest of the world. This measure is regionally specific, and it controls for the econometric problem that is generally associated with variations in the sizes of economies (heteroskedastic problems/variations) by considering trade as a percentage of GDP. Evidently, international trade with the rest of the world constitutes sufficient interaction with the rest of the world. Accordingly, the measurement does not lose sight of that perspective. However, the measurement is more precise when data are available for all the countries that have been considered. Invariably, this is not the case (see the Notes of Table 4)), and the information deficiency poses inferential challenges for inter-country comparisons more than regional empirical analysis Additionally, it is noteworthy that the trade of nations is generally based on wants and needs and not theoretical necessity (Warburton). We caveat this reality by including the trade compliance cost in the preliminary report. The availability of country specific data should make comparative analysis more helpful.

(

) / X M GDP +

;

i

RS

=

n

å

(

)

/ X M GDP +

j

1

j

=

In general, the average value of the countries in the study (the population)—since the study targets a specific number of countries—is considered; except when the values of at least 4 countries are missing (a 29 percent threshold), in which case the median value is utilized to compensate for the

Page 210 of 241