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:
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.