Despite Bachelier’s very early interest in stochastic analysis of speculative
prices and Working’s renewed interest in the 1920’s, stock market
research from this point on was very slow to develop. While professional
practitioners displayed a strong and continuing interest in the stock
market, it enjoyed relatively little academic attention until after the
debacle of 1929 [emphasis added]. While such lack of attention was
not absolute, it stands out very sharply in comparison with the extensive
research on commodity prices and on prices of those financial instruments
which came under the rubric of ‘‘money’’. This disinterest was
compounded of many parts: the smaller role played by organized equity
markets in industrial finance, a conviction that stock markets were the
product of mass (irrational) psychology akin to gambling, and a shortage,
among economists, of the mathematical and statistical skills necessary
for effective research in this field.