I did not try to delve into economic issues there, but here are a few thoughts:

1. Food costs at least three times what it does in the U.S., and hotels everywhere seem comparable to Manhattan in cost. Using airbnb helps cut expenses. Mass transit is efficient but not cheap. Overall, if you want a place where your dollars stretch far, go somewhere else.

2. People in Norway seemed to be very well off. We saw lots of high-end baby strollers, of the brands that cost close to one thousand dollars in the U.S. They cost about the same there. And we were told that many parents own more than one baby stroller, because the one that works best in snow is not the one that you prefer in nice weather. Restaurants in Oslo and Bergen seemed jammed with locals, although perhaps unusually good weather played a part in that. The oil slump dims the outlook for Norway somewhat, and we met someone with a son who is an oil engineer who had recently lost his job.

3. Denmark was a bit harder to read. We saw a lot of for-sale signs on homes on bucolic Bornholm Island, but does that indicate excess supply or the typical churn of a vacation/beach area? Copenhagen’s restaurants were bustling, which suggested affluence. Traditional Danish cuisine, like traditional English cuisine, is honored more in theory than in practice. Ethnic food seems dominant, especially if you include hamburgers as (American) ethnic food.

4. In other countries, governments like to subsidize specific products, such as bread or milk. I did not see much evidence of that in Norway or Denmark. I believe that the subsidies that people get are more general cash payments, such as pensions or paid family leave. This is probably a lot less distortionary.

5. On a day-to-day basis, these are very much market economies. There are credit-card readers everywhere, including the kiosks for purchasing subway tickets. I do not think that anyone misses an opportunity to charge money for something. We were happily using our credit card that does not charge a fee for currency conversion, only to discover late in the trip that establishments routinely add a 3 to 5 percent surcharge for “foreign cards.”

6. These are also very open economies. Everyone learns English. Many also speak other non-native languages. Ports and shipping are major industries.

7. Norway reminded me of eastern Canada in many ways, with abundant water and forest. My guess is that it took a long time for railroads and paved roads to emerge in Norway, because of mountains and other topographic challenges. I can imagine that until as recently as the late 19th century there were many parts of the country that were isolated. That would suggest a historical political structure based more on local clans than on central government, but I do not know if that was the case.