Countries with higher merchandise exports tend to have higher GNI.
Comparing GNI (current US$) with Merchandise exports (current US$) across 197 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.95
- Holding size constant
- +0.84
- Countries compared
- 197
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Exports generate foreign exchange and can boost national income, but GNI also includes income from abroad. A careful reader should note that both indicators are measured in current US$, which may inflate correlations due to currency effects.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The use of current US$ values may introduce spurious correlation from exchange rate fluctuations rather than real economic linkages.
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.