Nations with higher investment tend to import more printing paper
Comparing Gross Fixed Capital Formation — Value US$ with Printing and writing papers — Import quantity across 176 countries, 2023–2024.
- Rank correlation
- +0.92
- Holding size constant
- +0.75
- Countries compared
- 176
- Period
- 2023–2024
What might link these
Capital formation may reflect industrial activity, which could drive demand for paper products in offices or packaging. However, the link could also reflect broader economic development or trade patterns unrelated to investment itself.
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 may be driven by unmeasured factors like urbanization or literacy rates, which influence both indicators.
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.