boldjarl t1_j7bu4qs wrote on February 5, 2023 at 5:13 PM

Reply to comment by SteveInMotion in Economic freedom (Index of Economic Freedom) vs Income inequality (Gini coefficient) in 153 countries [OC] by Independent-Ad-514

The r^2 is less than 0.1, there is no trend to see.

Edit: decimal point.

rfkile t1_j7bwdgk wrote on February 5, 2023 at 5:28 PM

Unless a relationship is absolutely perfect and there's no noise whatsoever, you'll have an r^(2) less than 1. A value of r^(2) less than 1 doesn't mean "no trend." It just means "there's some fraction of the dependent variable that isn't controlled by the independent variable."

Also worth mentioning that the value OP provided is r (probably the Pearson Correlation Coefficient) rather than r^(2) Coefficient of Determination. While certainly, you can look at the graph and see plainly that the r^(2) is less than 1, it's important to distinguish between r and r^(2)

boldjarl t1_j7byzef wrote on February 5, 2023 at 5:45 PM

I meant 0.1. And I squared the r to get r squared.