Higher savings often align with higher national expenditure across countries.
Comparing Gross national expenditure (constant 2015 US$) with Gross domestic savings (current US$) across 162 countries, 2015–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.89
- Holding size constant
- +0.76
- Countries compared
- 162
- Period
- 2015–2025
What might link these
Gross domestic savings may fund investment in infrastructure or capital goods, boosting expenditure. However, reverse causation is possible—higher expenditure could also drive savings via economic growth. GDP and population controls reduce but don’t eliminate confounding by economic structure or policy.
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. Expenditure here is in constant dollars, while savings are current, introducing potential inflation-related distortion.
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.