Question: A financial regression analysis was carried out to estimate the linear relationship between long-term bond yields and the yield spread, a problem of significance in finance. The sample sizes were 242 monthly observations in each of five countries, and the results were the obtained regression r² values for these countries. The results were as follows.

Canada                 Germany                  Japan                  U.K.                U.S.

5.9%                      13.3%                    3.5%                31.7%              3.3%

Assuming that all five linear regressions were statistically significant, comment on and interpret the reported r² values.