  A common assumption in the literature is that the level of income inequality
shapes individuals' beliefs about whether the income distribution is fair
(``fairness views,'' for short). However, individuals do not directly observe
income inequality (which often leads to large misperceptions), nor do they
consider all inequities to be unfair. In this paper, we empirically assess the
link between objective measures of income inequality and fairness views in a
context of high but decreasing income inequality. We combine opinion poll data
with harmonized data from household surveys of 18 Latin American countries from
1997--2015. We report three main findings. First, we find a strong and
statistically significant relationship between income inequality and unfairness
views across countries and over time. Unfairness views evolved in the same
direction as income inequality for 17 out of the 18 countries in our sample.
Second, individuals who are older, unemployed, and left-wing are, on average,
more likely to perceive the income distribution as very unfair. Third, fairness
views and income inequality have predictive power for individuals'
self-reported propensity to mobilize and protest independent of each other,
suggesting that these two variables capture different channels through which
changes in the income distribution can affect social unrest.
