Make a paper dummy. Better yet, have the printer/binder make a machine-bound dummy for you.

Just ask the printer, they've got the experience.

With an imposition of 16 pages logic dictates that the ‘compensation’ should be n*x, where n is the paper thickness and x is the order of the spread in relation to the inner one.

Fun aside — any printer worth his/her salt will have impo-software that compensates automatically.
Not something a designer has to worry about.

Or find a published book with similar trim size, page count, paper stock, and binding method and use it as a poor-man’s bound dummy.

Take a print-out of your sample page, trim off a little extra along the gutter margin, and insert the page so that the fore-edge is flush. Then note where your inside margin appears to fall. Adjust to taste. When it looks good, it is good.

You have to talk to your printer about this (assuming you are having it printed, and this isn't a one-off laser job). It will depend on how the job is printed, folded, and imposed. The rule that one printer gives you (or that you get on a discussion board) will be completely wrong for another printer using different equipment and methods.

Kent’s answer is correct. I’ve used that technique and it works. In that case I asked the printer for a sample of a book they printed to similar specs.

On layout issues, be cautious about taking your printer’s advice. If the book comes back with layout problems, you’ll get blamed anyways.