My male colleagues at Kellogg are a clean-shaven, short-haired bunch. The first hypothesis is that the “business casual” atmosphere at a B-School makes the a clean-cut JCrew look focal and any deviation from it socially uncomfortable (though I have no qualms about ignoring it!). But colleagues on the Econ Dept, which is outside the B-School, also largely subscribe to this norm. Even short-sporting, flip-flop wearing, oldish-wannabe-surfer-economists from Southern California seem to shave daily. I can remember this pattern from grad school: the Europeans were pretty casual about shaving and the Americans were much more likely to have the clean-cut look.  There was no business casual social norm to conform to in grad school, so I don’t think that explanation carries all the water.

Another rationale for the buzz cut can be safely dismissed: if you think that having sticking with short hair saves on visits to the barber, you’re wrong. For this rationale to work, you have to be willing to have long hair too, otherwise you’re going quite often to the barber to keep it short all the time.  So if you are unwilling to go long, going short keeps your barber nicely employed.

I am led then to the Jeff Van Gundy explanation:

My dad said, ‘You can’t have normal-length hair until high school.’ It was a form of discipline.

Not only is it is a form of discipline, it is a signal of discipline.  You are disciplined enough to have regular haircuts and, by extension, shave regularly.  On the other hand, Europeans are busy counter-signaling: you are undisciplined and do incredibly well on exams, so you must be really smart!   No wonder Europeans and Americans can have such a hard time communicating with each other.

Hmmn.  After all this analysis, I guess I still have to work out what look to adopt.  After all, some scruffy people are hirsute because they truly are undisciplined.  Gotta make sure I’m not in that group.