Higher savings per person linked to lower import reserves per GDP
Comparing Total reserves in months of imports, per unit of GDP with Gross domestic savings (current US$), per capita across 148 countries, 2018–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.58
- Holding size constant
- -0.65
- Countries compared
- 148
- Period
- 2018–2025
What might link these
Countries with higher per-capita savings may rely less on import reserves as a buffer, or vice versa. A careful reader should note that reverse causality is possible, and omitted factors like trade openness or financial stability could confound 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 relationship could be driven by unmeasured economic or policy differences across countries.
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.