Oddball
Monthly Donor
It's rather odd, as there's a Finnish myth of Finland being the least developed country until 1945 when there was the magical growth period...While there are lies, damned lies and statistics the statistical picture usually puts Norway (and Finland) to Western European / Canadian GDP per capita levels in 1930's, far ahead of Eastern and Southern Europe.
The reason why there's the myth of poor Norway and Finland is because of those damn Swedes. Historically Sweden has not been only richer in per capita GDP terms but also in terms of showing off wealth in those mansions financed by Operation German Liberation.
Atleast the magical growt in Norway after 1945 have a natural explanation: Marshal Aid.
I also suspect that GDP is a rather dubious scale when discussing rate of development pre ww2. I could ofcourse be wrong
I do not know much about the Finnish situation tough