Civil liberties rating shows inverse link with capital investment per person.
Comparing Gross capital formation (current US$), per capita with Civil liberties rating, gaps filled across 165 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.57
- Holding size constant
- -0.44
- Countries compared
- 165
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Nations with higher civil liberties ratings tend to have lower gross capital formation per capita. This could suggest that environments with more freedom and rights may foster different investment patterns, or conversely, that economic development through capital investment might come with trade-offs in certain liberties. A potential confounder could be a country's stage of economic development, as both indicators might be influenced by this.
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 correlation does not imply that restricting civil liberties boosts capital formation, or vice-versa.
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.