Tim Harford tries to sort fact from fiction in the story of the Netherlands' 'tulip mania'. Was this the first great financial bubble?
In the 1630s, the Netherlands experienced 'tulip mania' - a surge in demand for tulips from wealthy buyers, with some individual bulbs costing twenty times more than a carpenter's annual salary. Then, in February 1637, the price suddenly crashed. It's often cited as the first great financial bubble, but is that really the case? Tim Harford tries to sort fact from fiction.
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Sources
Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of CrowdsΒ
Mike Dash Tulipomania Phoenix: London 2003
Anne Goldgar Tulipmania: Money, Honor and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age University of Chicago Press: Chicago 2007
Stephen Moss ββ The Guardian 28 October 2009
Peter Garber βFamous First Bubblesβ Journal of Economic Perspectives Spring 1990 and βTulipmaniaβ Journal of Political Economy 1989
James McClure and David Chandler Thomas βExplaining the timing of tulipmaniaβs boom and bust: historical context, sequester capital and market signalsβ Financial History Review 2017
Andrew Odlyzko βCollective hallucinations and ineο¬cient markets: The British Railway Mania of the 1840sβ Working Paper School of Mathematics and Digital Technology Center University of Minnesota, 2010
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