The hemline and the economy: is there any match?
Posted by Nicholas Gruen on Sunday, September 12, 2010
Urban legend has it that the hemline is correlated with the economy. In times of decline, the hemline moves towards the floor (decreases), and when the economy is booming, skirts get shorter and the hemline increases. We collected monthly data on the hemline, for 1921-2009, and evaluate these against the NBER chronology of the economic cycle. The main finding is that the urban legend holds true but with a time lag of about three years. Hence, the current economic crisis predicts ankle length shirts around 2011 and 2012.
Here’s the paper.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 12th, 2010 at 4:37 PM and filed under Life.
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classic! Unfortunately, of course, 3 years lag puts you at the other end of the cycle, so this paper is entirely an elaborate tongue-in-cheek study.
Posted on 14-Sep-10 at 9:47 am | Permalink