Robert Livingston Steiner ’45

Robert Livingston Steiner ’45, economist, businessman and senior staff economist at the Federal Trade Commission, died on October 26 in Washington, D.C. Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Steiner graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth. A member of the “Dartmouth Squadron,” Steiner flew 35 missions over Germany, serving as navigator and first lieutenant on a B-17 bomber in the 8th Army Air Force during WW II. He was awarded the Air Medal. After receiving his M.A. in economics from Columbia University in 1948 Steiner joined various family-owned manufacturing businesses in Cincinnati, the most successful of which was Kenner Products, the toy manufacturer of which he became president. Steiner was an early pioneer in television advertising for children’s toys in the l950s, starting with Girdle and Panel Building Sets and later the Easy Bake oven. Steiner’s business experience was the impetus for developing a dual stage theory of economics, in which manufacturers and retailers connected both horizontally and vertically and the margins at the two stages were often inversely related. After a lecture at Harvard Business School, Steiner was appointed senior staff economist at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., in 1978. He wrote more than 40 articles on antitrust, economic, marketing and advertising for scholarly journals. Steiner is survived by his wife, Christine, and four children.