Which 1720 bubble was centered on shares of the Mississippi Company?

The Mississippi Bubble was centered on shares of the Mississippi Company in France.

The Mississippi Company was promoted by John Law, a Scottish financier who gained influence over French finance during the early eighteenth century. The company held a monopoly over trade and colonization connected with French Louisiana, and its shares rose sharply as investors believed in the company’s future profits and in Law’s broader paper-money system.

Speculation intensified in 1719 and 1720. Share prices eventually collapsed when confidence in the company and the banknotes associated with Law’s system broke down. Law fled France, and the episode damaged public trust in paper finance and speculative company schemes.

The Mississippi Bubble happened in the same year as Britain’s South Sea Bubble, but the companies and countries were different. Both episodes are frequently paired because they show how monopoly claims, easy credit, publicity, and expectations of imperial wealth could fuel extraordinary share-price inflation.