Size Really Doesn’t Matter: In Search of a National Scale Effect

I search for a “scale” effect in countries. I use a panel data set that includes 200 countries over forty years and link the population of a country to a host of economic and social phenomena. Using both graphical and statistical techniques, I search for an impact of size on the level of income, inflation, material well-being, health, education, the quality of a country’s institutions, heterogeneity, and a number of different international indices and rankings. I have little success; small countries are more open to international trade than large countries, but are not systematically different otherwise.