Service exports rise with total goods and services exports per capita.
Comparing Service exports (BoP, current US$) with Exports of goods and services (BoP, current US$), per capita across 200 countries, 1994–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.58
- Holding size constant
- +0.82
- Countries compared
- 200
- Period
- 1994–2025
What might link these
As a nation's total trade in goods and services grows per person, its service exports also tend to increase. This is because service exports are a component of total exports, so their growth naturally contributes to overall export growth.
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 be an artifact of how both indicators are expressed as a proportion of a country's economic activity.
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.