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# Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Explains the Skirt Length Index

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## Video: Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Explains the Skirt Length Index

[Watch (HLS stream): Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Explains the Skirt Length Index](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JWYwiL0Z.m3u8) (1:22)

![Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Explains the Skirt Length Index](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JWYwiL0Z/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2015-05-08. Yale economist Robert Shiller explains what women's dresses and men's ties have to do with the stock market._


---

Jul 27, 2023 6:13 PM UTC

---

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---


## Transcript

Do you have a favorite kind of whimsical economic indicator like the Big Mac index for currencies? Oh, well the, the most whimsical indicator of all was introduced in the 1930s. It's skirt lengths. Do you know this one [ LAUGH ]? Tell me about that. Well, it used to be, women in the Teams, this is the 20th century I'm talking about, wore floor length skirts. Then in the roaring 20's, there were these Flapper girls who started wearing shorter and shorter skirts. The skirt high apparently peaked around 1929 and crashed In the 1930s. This inspired the theory that skirt length, predicts the stock market.

Maybe it, yeah, it's something about when women are in a euphoric mood, [ LAUGH ] they feel like short skirts than when they're depressed. But I don't know that anyone's followed up on that. I had a student who, did a, senior essay for me looking at, The width of mens ties. Remember in the 1970's there was this wide tie movement for men? And that was a booming stock market until' 73. That's interesting. But I wouldn't put too much faith into any of these theories.

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