Exports and industry value linked
Comparing Industry (including construction), value added (constant LCU), per unit of GDP with Exports of goods and services (constant LCU), per unit of GDP across 166 countries, 2011–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.94
- Holding size constant
- +0.94
- Countries compared
- 166
- Period
- 2011–2025
What might link these
The strong correlation between exports and industry value added may reflect a country's overall industrial capacity and competitiveness. A careful reader should consider that infrastructure, such as transportation networks, could be a confounder. The relationship might also be driven by countries with strong manufacturing sectors.
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 does not necessarily imply that increasing industry value added directly leads to more exports.
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.