Wikinson is author of the UK best seller The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. This article makes a clear link between inequality and social dysfunction and argues that for high income countries managing the economy for equity is far more important than managing for GDP growth.

Excerpt: Although many people believe inequality is socially divisive and adds to the problems associated with relative deprivation, what inequality does or does not do to us has remained largely a matter of personal opinion. But now that we have comparable measures of the scale of income inequality in different societies we can actually see what effect it has. The new evidence shows that inequality is much the most important explanation of why, despite their extraordinary material success, some of the most affluent societies seem to be social failures. [Get full article here.]