Services and industry values inversely related
Comparing Services, value added (current US$), per unit of GDP with Industry (including construction), value added (current US$), per unit of GDP across 204 countries, 2011–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.58
- Holding size constant
- -0.56
- Countries compared
- 204
- Period
- 2011–2025
What might link these
The inverse relationship between services and industry value added per unit of GDP might reflect differences in economic development stages or sectoral priorities across countries. A careful reader should consider the potential impact of factors like natural resource availability or technological advancement. Education level could be a likely confounder.
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. This correlation could mislead by suggesting a direct trade-off between services and industry, when in fact other factors like government policies or global market trends might be driving the relationship.
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.