Now, after its investigation, the Commerce Department has decided that handouts of shares should count as a labour cost.
It said the location was "logistically attractive" and offered "significant labour cost savings".
At the same time, it has a big agricultural potential as well as the availability of low-cost labour.
Weighing up the advantages of immigrant labour against the cost of supplying services to migrants is not easy.
The president of the RMT union, Alex Gordon, says Mr Balls's decision to back the public sector pay freeze will cost Labour votes.
Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing cheap clothing for major Western retailers which benefit from widespread low-cost labour.
The group warned Tony Blair that calling an early vote on issue could cost Labour more than 100 seats at the next general election.
In February, the North American Radiological Society, a frequent visitor to McCormick Place, fired a warning shot when it voted to alternate its future conventions between Chicago and Orlando, explaining that labour and hotels cost less in Florida.
Wages paid are simply not the same as cost of labour to the employer.
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The biggest cost councils can control is the cost of labour.
The wedge between an employer's cost of labour and a worker's net pay is a relatively modest 79% in America and 47% in Switzerland, compared with 200% in Italy.
These comparatively high rates have been assumed as necessary from the beginning, due to the fact that the project activities must compete with high opportunities cost for labour caused by the strong presence of the informal sector.
Most businessmen were at first strongly opposed to the measure, saying that it would put up the cost of labour by 11% to make up for the four hours lost each week, squeeze productivity, prompt lay-offs and spread poverty.
You can debate the cost of Labour's "five point plan for growth", but given that a good part of it is funded through higher taxes on banks, the net impact is unlikely to be more than 1% of GDP.
If income is declining, which it is both because vacancy rates are rising and also because local councils are cutting the amounts they are willing to pay for care, labour is a fixed cost, then obviously rent needs to be reduced to avoid bankruptcy.
He finds it hard to differentiate between the two countries, either in the quality or the cost of their labour.
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It should be able to prune vines at about half the cost of manual labour, says Derek Morikawa, the chief executive of Vision Robotics.
The way would have been at least semi-clear for the sweeping reform of taxation, welfare and the labour market that high-cost Germany, with its unemployment rate of over 10%, badly needs.
As the previous Labour government found to its cost as UK forces fought on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, amid front pages about overstretch and an army "running hot", defence can become an explosive political issue.
Suddenly the president is talking of the high cost of French labour as a major problem, of the 57% of GDP spent by the state as excessive and wasteful, and of of the loss of sovereignty caused by hyper-debt.
It takes six times as long to obtain construction permits in Russia as in Sweden and, despite cheaper labour and land, the cost of building a distribution centre is a third more expensive than in London, according to McKinsey.
Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors had called for a referendum which the Labour group rejected on grounds of cost.
Problems have included price controls, which prevent below-cost selling, rigid labour laws and tough zoning regulations, which make it extremely difficult to build big stores.
But the realisation that the cost of east German labour and production had priced itself out of the market quickened the spiral of joblessness and emigration.
Steel contractor Hollandia, was called in to replace CBUK, but no agreement was reached on the upper limit of the cost of steel and labour to Multiplex.
Undeterred, in Magdalena Mr Cavallo said that he could slash Argentina's 14.5% unemployment rate through tax and labour reforms, and cut the cost of public services by competition in their provision.
Labour councillor Ben Grower said the cost was "outrageous" and said the money "could have been given to Bournemouth's food banks", or used to help save a disability service which was closed down due to council budget cuts.
During a Westminster Hall debate, Labour claimed families were suffering a "cost of living crisis".
But this is really an argument for labour-market reform to minimise the cost of recessions, not one for measures to prevent them altogether.
One side-effect of the cost-cutting was a labour dispute in the summer of 1997, when short-haul cabin crews went on strike to protest against changes in their working patterns.
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