Nothing odd about this. Danish economic history is strangely fascinating.
To what extent was their success due to culture? To enlightened elites? To that nice Mr Bismarck who ensured that Denmark would be unusually homogenous? To culture?
Economists are allergic to cultural arguments, and I eventually came to the view that size and homogeneity, not culture, explain the rapidity of Danish structural change in the wake of the grain invasion.
But I'd challenge anyone who has Danish to read this wonderful book and then tell me with a straight face that culture, and perhaps in particular the influence of Grundtvig, was completely irrelevant
saxo.com/dk/solskin-for…
saxo.com/dk/solskin-for…
Finally, great to see PK referencing both Ingrid Henriksen, the great expert on the Danish cooperatives, and Jensen et al. Odense has become one of the best European centres in cliometrics, and the publication of the Lampe-Sharp book is a major event.
