 Construction on the new highway to the capital begins in the new year, and more than 1,200 homes will also be built. In a small country of less than 6 million people, Novo Nordisk is now so big that it's having an outsized impact on the Danish economy, which grew four times faster than the European Union average. But strip away the drug giant, and it's a different story. Lasse Olsson is the chief economist at Danske Bank.