This paper addresses a question which is fundamental to the perceived legitimacy of the distribution of resources today: to what extent does unfairness in how assets came to be acquired in the past affect incomes and wealth now? 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 now unjust. I use a principle put forward by Robert Nozick to provide the first of these things and then use a model of wealth accumulation and economic growth to illustrate its implications for the scale of unfairness today. The greater is depreciation of assets, the higher are saving rates out of labour income and the less important is human capital the more transient are the effects of past economic injustices. I use data on the perceived unfairness of economic outcomes to see if there is any evidence that those features which the model implies should influence the durability of injustice help explain cross-country differences in attitudes towards unfairness.

中文翻译：

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经济不公的半衰期

本文探讨了一个对当今资源分配合法性至关重要的问题：过去获取资产的不公平性在多大程度上影响了现在的收入和财富？要回答这个问题需要两件事：第一，确定什么是，什么不是，公正的财富获取或公正的收入来源的原则；第二，使用该原则来估计财富和收入中的哪些部分现在是不公平的。我使用罗伯特·诺齐克提出的原则来提供这些东西中的第一个，然后使用财富积累和经济增长的模型来说明它对当今不公平程度的影响。资产折旧越大，劳动收入中的储蓄率越高，人力资本越不重要，过去经济不公正的影响就越短暂。我使用关于感知到的经济结果不公平的数据来看看是否有任何证据表明模型暗示的那些特征应该影响不公正的持久性有助于解释各国对不公平态度的差异。