Filip Spagnoli (National Bank of Belgium) has posted Income Inequality: What’s Wrong with It, and What’s Not on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
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In this paper, I list a number of commonly cited negative effects of high or rising levels of income inequality and examine the literature in order to assess the statistical and empirical evidence in favor of or against the presence and/or strength of those negative effects. Given the prevalence of the topic of income inequality in contemporary political, economic and social discussions, it's important to have a good understanding of the effects of income inequality and to be able to identify effects that are or are not supported by strong statistical evidence. Such an understanding will also help to improve policies intended to diminish income inequality or to mitigate its effects (such as, for example, progressive taxation or education subsidies).
I recommend this very short, readable, and informative paper–if you are interested in getting a quick overview, it does a lot of work in just a few pages. Of course, it doesn't use the word "justice" even once.
