Countries importing more paper tend to hold higher foreign reserves
Comparing Printing and writing papers — Import quantity with Reserves excluding gold, foreign exchange (SDR) across 153 countries, 2024–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.85
- Holding size constant
- +0.58
- Countries compared
- 153
- Period
- 2024–2025
What might link these
A high demand for imported paper may reflect industrial activity or trade openness, which could correlate with stronger reserve accumulation for stability. However, the partial correlation drops after controlling for GDP, suggesting population or economic size drives part of the link.
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 initial strong correlation may overstate the relationship due to unmeasured factors like trade policies or currency regimes.
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.