Trade (% of GDP) strongly correlates with merchandise imports (% of GDP)
Comparing Trade (% of GDP) with Merchandise imports as a share of countrys gdp across 182 countries, 2011–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.71
- Holding size constant
- +0.64
- Countries compared
- 182
- Period
- 2011–2025
What might link these
Both indicators measure trade openness, but imports are a subset of total trade. A likely confounder is industrialization—countries with larger manufacturing sectors may import more inputs while also having higher total trade volumes.
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. Merchandise imports are already included in trade (% of GDP), so the high correlation may partly reflect definitional overlap.
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.