Exceptionally high public and private debts constrain a country’s options and are indisputably associated with slower growth, which in turn makes it difficult to escape a debt trap. Last spring’s campaign against anyone who dared to worry about the long-run effects of high debt largely ignored the substantial academic literature, just as a remarkably similar recent challenge to Thomas Piketty’s research on inequality took no account of a larger body of evidence.
债务积压让国家陷入恶性循环。过高的公共和私人债务约束了一国的选择，并且毫无例外地伴随着更低的增长，而更低的增长反过来又让国家难以摆脱债务陷阱。去年春天针对所有敢于担忧高债务的长期影响者的批评大多对大量学术研究成果视而不见，与此形成惊人相似的是，眼下对托马斯·皮克提（Thomas Piketty）关于不平等性的研究的诘难也根本不顾大量证据。