The efficient-market hypothesis – the belief that financial markets price risks correctly on average – provided the intellectual argument for extensive deregulation of banking in the 1980s and 1990s. Similarly, the austerity policies that Europe used to fight the recession from 2010 on were based on the belief that there was no recession to fight.
有效市场假说——认为平均而言金融市场对风险正确地进行了定价——为20世纪八九十年代银行监管的大规模放松提供了理论基础。类似地，欧洲从2010年以来为了战胜衰退而采用的紧缩政策乃是基于根本没有衰退需要战胜这一思想。