Countries with higher foreign reserves tend to import more paper and paperboard.
Comparing Paper and paperboard — Import value with Reserves excluding gold, foreign exchange (SDR) across 153 countries, 2024–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.85
- Holding size constant
- +0.60
- Countries compared
- 153
- Period
- 2024–2025
What might link these
Wealthier nations (with higher reserves) may import more paper products for industrial use or consumption, while poorer nations might prioritize essential imports. However, the correlation weakens after controlling for GDP and population, suggesting other factors like trade policies or industrialization play a role.
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 remaining correlation could still be driven by unmeasured confounders like trade openness or industrial capacity.
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.