The Half Life of Economic Injustice

David Miles

No 13342, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: How much of today's income (GDP) is a result of unjust economic transactions? How much is a legacy of past acquisition of wealth (capital) which was itself unjust? To answer that question requires two things: first, a principle to determine what is, and what is not, a just acquisition of wealth or a just source of income; second, a means of using that principle to estimate what fraction of wealth and income is unjust. I use a principle put forward by Robert Nozick to provide the first of these things and then use some calculations based on standard neoclassical models of economic growth to illustrate its implications for the scale of unfairness today.

Keywords: Distributive justice; Solow growth model; Income distribution; Human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O15 P14 P26 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-hpe
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Journal Article: The half life of economic injustice (2022)
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