By comparison with the ups and downs of commerce under the Empire, the business cycle during the Restoration and July Monarchy was orderly. The lows were not necessarily more shallow nor the highs less steep (although often they were), but the causes of these alterations were identifiable and, to a certain extent, systematic. War was replaced by poor harvests and bank failures as the triggers of periodic slumps. Price formation was erratic and unpredictable, but it did occur. Producers could use price information as a guide to planning over longer terms and thus could find profit in exploiting smaller price differentials. Speculation plagued the international supply lines for raw cotton and wool, occasionally creating purely artificial scarcities that defied all planning efforts, but in the intervals, supply was very steady and abundant, better than it had ever been in the eighteenth century, in fact. Yarn markets were more regular still. Trade in finished cloth became highly organized although prices remained erratic due to a new factor promoted by the merchants themselves: the increased pace of change in fashion.