At 03:53 PM 3/11/98 -0800, Doug Orr wrote:
>Trivia question number two. This may be one of those "urban myths" but back
>in the distant past when I was in graduate school, I was told about a study
>that found that there was a correlation between the lengths of women's skirts
>and the business cycle.
Two possible explanations:
1. Probability theory. I vaguely recall an article I read for my stats
class in which the author calculated the probability of finding a
statistically significant correlation between two sets of random numbers
(i.e. where no relationship exist by definition). To my best recollection
(but I would not bet much on that) that probability was in the vicinity of
1/600.
2. Chicken and egg fallacy. As with most other things, economists got the
causal order wrong again. It's the business cycle that affects the length
of women's skirts, not the other way around. Economic growth affects
attitudes in various ways, my preferred one is Machiavellian manipulation
of fashion. Miniskirt is an expression of adventurism, hedonism and what
not -- associated with "good times" (growth) - so the fashion moguls
promote them during the period of growth to sent the message out to
encourage people to take advantage of the good times. However, the boost
inevitably follows, so when this miniskirt fashion finally takes a hold
(lag in popular response to signals sent by the 'markets'), recession sets
in. In respsonse, the fashion moguls sent the signal of being more modest
and conservative (long skirts). Again due to the lag in response, that
fashion takes a hold only shortly before another period of growth occurs.
