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Visa & Entry Permits

Indicator Definition

Requirements and difficulties for obtaining a business visitor visa, based on the number of documents, ease of access to the consulate, cost, and duration of visa granted.

 

Coding Methodology

The Hassle Factor Visa metric is a weighted composite measure that combines three sub-indicators: visa exemptions, documentary requirements, health insurance requirements.

We measured visa exemptions based on the number of countries whose citizens can travel to the country under observation visa-free or with a visa issued upon entry. We coded the sub-indicators on three-point Likert scales using the following criteria:

Sub-Indicator

Criteria

Range

Code

Exemptions

Number of countries exempt from visa requirements

More than 20

1

Between 19-15

2

Less than 15

3


We measured documentary requirements based on the number of documents required to obtain a travel visa.

Sub-Indicator

Criteria

Range

Code

Documentary Requirements

Number of documents required to obtain a short-term visa

Less than 4

0

between 4 and 7

1

between 8 and 10

2

More than 10

3


Health insurance was captured on the basis of whether or not this is a requirement to obtain a visa. We coded this sub-indicator using the criteria in the following table.

Sub-Indicator

Criteria

Range

Code

Health Insurance Requirement

Is travel health insurance required to obtain a short term visa

No

0

Yes

1


The sub-indicators scores were converted to a 1-7 scale using the following formula:

Visa formula

Where: i = sub-indicator scores and j = country.

In some cases, we added a moderator to measure the additional difficulties in obtaining a visa. We used the moderator only in cases where the three sub-indicators were insufficient to capture the level of complexity involved in the visa process. It consisted of the following criteria: cost, processing time, number of foreign missions that process visa applications and types of visa required: single/multi-entry etc. The moderator was measured on a five-point Likert scale using available data.


Imputation

No data was imputed for this measure.



Sources

Central Intelligence Agency, The World Fact Book  

Global Road Warrior

Passport Index, Welcoming Countries Rank 

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