It’s been a while since we talked about the inequality hypothesis on this blog. It’s also been a while since I’ve seen any coverage of it elsewhere. For certain politicians and commentators on the left it seems to have settled into the status of fact (“we know that inequality causes all sorts of social problems”), while everyone else seems to have just forgotten about it. The torrent of academic studies has also slowed to a trickle – like everyone’s got inequality fatigue.

The trouble is that there are still some really interesting questions that need answering. One of the most fundamental for me is whether more income inequality really translates directly into stronger differentiation of social status.