Trade Acceptances, Financial Reform, and the Culture of Commercial Credit in the United States, 1915–1920
研究了1910年代美国金融改革者推动企业用贸易承兑取代传统商业信贷的运动，探讨其如何借助行业协会和联邦政府推广，以及企业界的抵制与最终影响。
This article examines the nationwide campaign by financial reformers in the 1910s to convince businesses across the United States to abandon established commercial credit practices and use trade acceptances—the quintessential “real bill”—in their stead. The creation of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) and the outbreak of World War I offered a powerful coalition of campaigners the opportunity to forcefully argue that by capitalizing open account credit, trade acceptances fostered good business practices and stabilized the banking and financial systems. These campaigners relied on trade associations to disseminate, and the federal government to legitimize, their message. While some firms obliged, many businesses and banks criticized the campaigners’ arguments, casting trade acceptances as a means of financial centralization and as being contrary to the American culture of credit. Trade acceptances did not supplant promissory notes or trade in the open market and were rarely used by banks to access Fed liquidity. Instead, their legacy lies in their adoption by finance companies in the hope of securing financing for the distribution and mass consumption of consumer durables.