ABSTRACT
The South Sea Bubble is best understood with reference to the Mississippi Bubble, which occurred in France a few years beforehand, as a consequence of the implementation of the economic ideas of the famous Scottish financier, John Law. The Mississippi Bubble would set in motion a series of speculative adventures, which would include frenzied action and messy politics. It continues to provide a rich site to mine for insight into the various factors that impact on and shape speculative activity. The idea behind the parent scheme was that the state should sell certain trading monopolies in the South Seas in return for a sum of money to pay off the National Debt. The key features of the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles will be studied to shed further light on the nature of bubbles active within classical political economy.
