An opinion: Denmark has a more modern and dynamic economy, but it's hard to compare anything to Norway, because they have such huge natural resources that they

An opinion: Denmark has a more modern and dynamic economy, but it's hard to compare anything to Norway, because they have such huge natural resources that they can pay for all kinds of arrangements if they choose to. For example, Norway has an inefficient agricultural sector deliberately kept isolated from the EU market with high tariffs, but it's seen as culturally important, and the country can afford to maintain it as long as it's popular to do so. Even looking into the future, their resource economy seems likely to persist. Oil production is declining, but fairly slowly, and natural-gas production has actually been rising. The value of hydroelectric exports has been going up as European demand for "green" electricity allows them to be sold at a premium price. There are large thorium reserves, which might some day be valuable. There are also large, barely-exploited wind resources, which could be exported like the hydroelectric ones are, though they pose more grid issues. Between all these different sources they sort of hit the energy jackpot.