Almost everywhere else in Europe: France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the Balkans, Greece, Eastern Europe, and Russia were the main theater of war for most of World War I and World War II and faced an incredible amount of property damage and civilian casualties. However, apart from Germany's invasion of Norway and Denmark and Finland's battles with the Soviet Union, I think it is fair to say that Scandinavia (mostly Sweden) was spared from most of the bloodshed that plagued the rest of the continent. My question is, did this relative lack of invasion greatly contribute to their current status of wealth? I believe many attribute the United States' post-war rise to prominence to their profits from selling arms to Europe while keeping their country intact with all the fighting occurring thousands of miles away, so I feel like the reason is somewhat shared between the United States and Sweden.
Considering how much trade was cut off during the war and how they were effectively roped into providing resources on credit to Germany, it really didn't help; relative the rest of Europe it did help that it wasn't destroyed by war so was much more economically sound once it could trade again freely. It could therefore take much more advantage of the economic recovery as a result. Before the war though it had a high standard of living because of its limited population and highly favorable balance of trade due to its mineral wealth. Plus it was able to pay off a lot of debt to Germany during the 1920s when the exchange rate made it favorable to do so. WW1 probably contributed more to their economic well being than WW2 did, but WW2 largely eliminated the competition and resulted in the EEC, which they benefited from quite a bit.
Additional question, how much did the wars and the war reparations affect Finland's economical projection compared to Sweden? Did having to create industry for war and the reparations that followed give a booster for the country's Industrialization that might not otherwise have happened that quickly? Was Finland nevertheless always in the worst position of the nordic countries to prosper, it is now the weakest economy of the big 4 after all if I'm not wrong about that?