# Statistics; Norway and Canada


Last Thursday, I spent several hours reading up on Norwegian and
Canadian statistics in a number of categories; partly because I was
preparing a research paper on Norwegian development aid, and partly
because of proper interest. Here are some of my disparate findings
(sources: [Statistics Norway](http://www.ssb.no/english/),
[CIDA](http://www.cida.ca), [Norad](http://www.norad.no) and [the
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs](http://odin.dep.no/ud/english/bn.html) - let me know if you
want a specific reference for any of this).

**Development aid:** Norway gives about 0.92% of GDP, Canada gives
0.25%. That coupled with a higher GDP/capita for Norway, means that
Norway gives very close to the same real amount of development aid as
Canada - even though Norway has 4.5 million inhabitants, and Canada
around 30 million.

**Farming subsidies:** Norwegian agriculture employs about 71,000
“full-time worker equivalents” (for example 142,000 half-time workers,
etc). The full amount of Norwegian agricultural subsidies divided by the
number of full time worker equivalents yields an average of \$50,000 CAD
in state subsidies per “worker”. This amounts to almost 3% of Norway’s
GDP (and thus more than three times our development budget).

**Newspapers:** Our biggest daily, VG, ranks as the 51st biggest
newspaper in the world (in terms of circulation), with a circulation of
over 800,000 copies daily. Probably because we are a newspaper-reading
country with few national newspapers to choose from, compared to other
countries. (Even very well known international English and American
newspapers, like the Times and the Washington Post, have surprisingly
low circulation). I believe the newspaper with the highest circulation
was Korean.

**Oil:** Norway is the third biggest oil exporter in the world. This
surprised me quite a bit. However, part of the reason is that we spend
very little of what we produce, compared to larger oil producing
nations. (The two others are Saudia Arabia, and Russia).

**Universities:** The University of Oslo and the University of Toronto’s
budgets, controlled for the number of students, are roughly similar in
size. However, in Norway the government covers the whole bill, whereas
in Canada, the students pay roughly half.

Stian