Ultimately, the problem of judging austerity programs is that economists cannot run fully controlled experiments. When researchers tested Prozac on depressed patients, they divided their subjects randomly into control and experimental groups, and conducted many trials.
最终，评判紧缩政策的问题在于经济学家无法运行一个完全受控实验。比如研究者们测试百忧解（一种抗抑郁药物）的时候，他们可以把被试者随机分为控制组和实验组并反复测试。而在国家债务问题上显然是无法做到这一点的。