As exceptions to the rule that these should be conflicting goals, the Nordic countries have often been mentioned. The Nordic model has attracted considerable interest because it seems to have been able to combine – also in the past decade – a high level of social protection and egalitarian income distribution with high economic dynamism.
1 So, does the Nordic model really offer a way to reconcile the European ideals with the demands of the global economy? To answer this question, we need to look more closely at the Nordic experience. Actually, the Nordic economies are quite different from each other – both in terms of their resource endowment, as well as their industrial structure.