Nothing succeeds like success, or, when failure is rife, even like modest decline. The world is looking for lessons from Nordic countries, some of which are weathering the crisis better than most. Such lessons certainly merit pondering. It is less clear that they can be put into practice elsewhere.

The Nordic model is in fact facing mixed fortunes in the crisis. Norway and Denmark are holding up well, but in Sweden and Finland unemployment is touching 9 per cent and growth is worse than in much of Europe. But the model is rightly admired for its long-term achievement: generous welfare systems and low inequality while keeping productivity high.

Those who point – with dread or delight – to the region's high taxes miss the striking fact that the pre-tax wage structure is more compressed there than elsewhere. Nor has it, to any significant extent, followed the global trend of rapidly increasing wage inequality.