Journal Article The Price Policy of the United States Steel Corporation Get access Edward Sherwood Meade Edward Sherwood Meade The University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 22, Issue 3, May 1908, Pages 452–466, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883741 Published: 01 May 1908

Journal Article The United States Steel Corporation's Bond Conversion Get access Edward Sherwood Meade Edward Sherwood Meade The University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 18, Issue 1, November 1903, Pages 22–53, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882774 Published: 01 November 1903

Journal Article Capitalization of the United States Steel Corporation Get access Edward Sherwood Meade Edward Sherwood Meade University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 16, Issue 2, February 1902, Pages 214–232, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882744 Published: 01 February 1902

Journal Article The Genesis of the United States Steel Corporation Get access Edward Sherwood Meade Edward Sherwood Meade The University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 15, Issue 4, August 1901, Pages 517–550, https://doi.org/10.2307/1884974 Published: 01 August 1901

The question of industrial combinations can be approached from many standpoints. The trust may be considered from the standpoint of its possible limitation of business opportunity. It can be considered in its relation to labor, to the railroads, to the tariff, to the banks, and to the investor. This institution can also be considered from the standpoint of its effect upon the prices of its products and from the standpoint of its efficiency as a form of business organization. It is from the last two standpoints that I propose to discuss the question. When the trusts were organized, most of them coming into existence during the five years beginning I898, two advantages were claimed for this form of business organization: first, that the trusts would maintain more stable prices than were possible under conditions of competition, and second, that they would result in raising the standard of business efficiency. The advantages of price-maintenance were urged from two standpoints: first, the benefit to the companies directly affected, and second, the benefit to the public. It has been urged, and I believe that there is general agreement on this proposition, that irregular prices, because of the element of uncertainty which they introduce into business calculations, are highly objectionable; and that any institution or agency which results in maintaining prices unchanged for long periods of time, raising or lowering the level as fundamental conditions change, must, so far as it accomplishes these results, be approved. From the standpoint of the public, it has been urged that the prices which such companies charge, because they are collected from every buyer and because the manufacturer's profits are not sacrificed in long-term contracts in every season of dull trade, will be fixed at a lower level than is possible under competitive conditions. In other words, the claim was made in defense of the trusts, that the prices of the necessaries of life, as well as of the materials and machinery of industry, would be lower as a