Countries importing more sawnwood tend to export more paper and paperboard
Comparing Sawnwood — Import quantity with Other paper and paperboard — Export quantity across 174 countries, 2023–2024.
- Rank correlation
- +0.68
- Holding size constant
- +0.51
- Countries compared
- 174
- Period
- 2023–2024
What might link these
Higher sawnwood imports may reflect advanced wood processing industries, which could also produce more paper and paperboard for export. A careful reader should note that correlation does not imply causation, and other factors like trade policies or forestry resources might drive both.
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 relationship could be influenced by unmeasured confounders like industrial capacity or regional trade agreements.
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.