Countries with higher exports tend to import more wood and paper products.
Comparing Exports of goods and services (constant 2015 US$) with Primary wood and paper products (export/import) — Import value across 146 countries, 2024–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.93
- Holding size constant
- +0.82
- Countries compared
- 146
- Period
- 2024–2025
What might link these
Wealthier or more industrialized countries may export more while also importing higher-value wood/paper products for manufacturing. A careful reader should note that trade policies or resource endowments could drive both metrics without direct causation.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The strong correlation might reflect underlying economic size rather than a direct relationship between these specific indicators.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.