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However, a more detailed examination of theabove literature suggests that the crosscountrygrowth regressions often reflect either onthe specific components of the labour regulatoryregime that may be hindering growth, or indeedrepresent the entire gamut of labour legislationas one index. Both these approaches and subsequentresults suggest that there is a heterogeneityin the labour regulatory regime that needs tobe grasped, and furthermore that this heterogeneitycan have a differential impact on economicgrowth. For example, Forteza and Rama (2001)find in one of their set of results, that over theperiod 1970-86, the number of ILO Conventionsratified is insignificantly related to GDP growth,but that the minimum wage indicator is negativeand significant. Loayza et al (2006), in turn, finda significant and negative relationship betweeneconomic growth and the labour regulation index,but this index is represented as an aggregatemeasure, and is not expanded into the componentsnoted in Table 1.The evidence on the impact of the labour regulatoryregime on specific labour market indicators,in addition, suggests similar outcomes andconsequent concerns. Hence higher levels oflabour regulation appear to be significantly associatedwith a larger informal economy, higherinformal employment, reduced male participationrates and higher unemployment rates particularlyamongst the youth (Botero et al. 2004;Loayza et al. 2006; Lazear 1990). However,once again, these results are either too aggregatedin their measure of labour regulation, orindeed, do reflect on the heterogeneous impact oflabour regulation on these labour market indicators.Specifically, then, it is not clear whetherall components of labour regulation and workerprotection encourage growth of informal employment,or some components do so more thanothers. This would seem to be a critical avenueof enquiry — in order to better assist the currentpolicy debate. In addition, where such specificityis isolated, as in the Botero et al (2004) study,one finds that certain components of the labourregime are more important than others in shapinglabour market outcomes. Hence, protective collectiverelations laws, but no other components ofthe labour regulatory architecture, are shown tobe associated with a larger informal economy.Across-country growth regression analysis(using the ordinary least squares approach)serves to illustrate the problem of aggregatingacross indices to arrive at firm conclusions. Ifsuch a regression is run on the DBS 2006 results,and simply includes most of the individualregulation indices — rather than the compositemeasures often utilised - the regulatory effectsincluding those for the labour market aremuted. Hence, of the individual labour regulatorymeasures in this admittedly very simplisticspecification, two of the five (hiring costs andhours rigidity) are significant at the five percentlevel. Notably however, the signs on both thesecoefficients are positive, indicating, for example,that higher hiring costs (and hours of rigidity) areassociated with higher GNI per capita economies.This does not mean, however, that regulation ingeneral and labour regulation in particular, arenot important in the growth debate. Instead, itdoes suggest some caution in our interpretationof the published results and, more importantly,their translation into country-level policy interventionswithout due consideration both to theheterogeneity in the regulatory environment, andto country-specific conditions.Two additional caveats to the debate relating tothe impact of labour regulation are worth noting.Firstly, that the absolute impact of labour regulationmay, even when using composite measures,160