An International Monetary Fund paper in 2012 brought Alesina’s hour of glory to an end. Going through the same material as Alesina had, its authors pointed out that “while it is plausible to conjecture that confidence effects have been at play in our sample of consolidations, during downturns they do not seem to have ever been strong enough to make the consolidations expansionary.”
结果国际货币基金组织2012年发表的一份报告使阿尔塞纳颜面扫地。仔细研究过阿尔塞纳拥有的同一批材料后，该报告作者指出“尽管我们有理由推测信心在财政巩固政策样本中起到了作用，在低迷时期却似乎没有强大到足以使巩固政策实现扩张”。在特定时期，财政紧缩是会导致经济收缩的。