Download This PaperGovernment Equity and Money: John Law's System in 1720 France
64 Pages Posted: 16 Mar 2004
Date Written: December 2003
Abstract
John Law's System was a radical restructuring of French public finances, carried out from 1716 to 1720. It involved on the one hand a conversion of the existing French public debt into something like government equity, on the other hand the replacement of commodity money with fiat money. For strategic reasons, Law supported the equity at too high a level, resulting in uncontrolled money creation. The System ended with the recreation of a public debt at, surprisingly, the same level as before.
Keywords: ohn Law, government equity, bubble, debt conversion
JEL Classification: B31, E42, N13, N23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Velde, Francois R., Government Equity and Money: John Law's System in 1720 France (December 2003). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=486983 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.486983
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