ABSTRACT
The Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles of 1720 are two of the most famous nancial bubbles in history, and amongst the earliest. Each owes its name to a great joint-stock trading company. John Law had restructured the French economy to conform to his ‘System’ or ‘Système’. He combined a number of companies into one leviathan. It is known to posterity as the Mississippi Company and was involved in a number of Atlantic trading ventures.
