Macroeconomic Gravity Dashboard

Trade openness, GDP scale, and population size across 30 countries in a balanced 2010–2023 panel.

Panel Observations
420
30 countries × 14 years
A balanced country-year panel supports direct comparison across the full period.
Average Trade Openness
87.96%
Median 68.37%
The distribution is right-skewed, with a few very open economies lifting the panel mean.
GDP-Only Log GDP β
-24.49
95% CI [-29.28, -19.70]
The simple bivariate slope is clearly negative in this sample, matching the fitted line in the scatter below.
GDP + Pop Comparison
GDP β -0.92
Population β -20.69
Once population enters the model, the GDP coefficient compresses toward zero while population remains strongly negative.
Interpretation Snapshot

The GDP-only model shows a pronounced negative association between log GDP and trade openness: β = -24.49 with a 95% confidence interval of [-29.28, -19.70]. In other words, larger economies in this panel tend to trade less relative to the size of their own GDP.

When population is added, the GDP coefficient shrinks to -0.92 and its interval spans zero, while population remains materially negative at -20.69. Within these specifications, aggregate GDP does not dominate the trade-openness relationship once country size is represented another way.

The full model adds GDP per capita, where the positive β = +6.59 sits alongside a still-negative GDP coefficient (-7.51) and population coefficient (-14.10). That pattern is more consistent with openness being linked to economic intensity than to sheer scale alone.

Correlation(trade, log GDP): -0.441 Scatter fit R²: 0.195 Panel years: 2010–2023
Commonality Scale & Chart Catalog Evaluation
Commonality scale used here: 1 = niche, 3 = standard analytical, 5 = canonical/default. “Chart catalog” refers to the chart family selected for the analytical task.
1 · Niche 2 · Uncommon 3 · Standard 4 · Very common 5 · Canonical
View Catalog family Commonality Why it fits this task
Coefficient chart Effect size / uncertainty comparison 4 / 5 Grouped estimates with confidence intervals make it easy to compare how GDP and population coefficients move across model specifications.
Trade vs log GDP scatter Relationship / correlation 5 / 5 A scatter plot with fitted line is the canonical way to inspect whether the bivariate pattern visible in the panel matches the regression slope.
Regression Effect Sizes by Model
Grouped coefficients from GDP Only, GDP + Pop, and the full model, with 95% confidence intervals. The key comparison is the collapse of the GDP coefficient once population is included.
Trade Openness vs Log GDP
Each point is a country-year observation; the fitted line is the same bivariate relationship summarized by the GDP-only regression coefficient.
Most Open Economies in the Panel
Top countries by average trade openness across the full sample period.
Country Avg. trade openness Avg. log GDP Latest year
Coefficient Detail Table
Exact estimates and confidence intervals used in the effect-size chart.
Model Term Estimate 95% CI