La Bourse de Paris et les compagnies financières entre marché primaire et marché à terme au XVIIIe siècle (1695-1794)

Abstract

Paris Stock Exchange and financial companies. Between primary market and forward market at the XVIIIth century The XVIIIth century was characterised by an important development of the financial activity. We present in a first part the financial crisis and the turbulence that affected the French financial market between 1695 and 1715, due to the huge expansion of heterogeneous papers. The Law System proposed to reduce the problems relating to the important debt created by Louis XIV is then analysed. After the failure of the Law System, the question concerning the creation of a financial market, framed by the public authority and advantageous to the economy was posed. This questioning conduced to the creation of the Paris Stock Exchange in 1724. From 1780 to 1789, the development of financial activities, the implication of the financials and politicians in the public life proposed some analogies with nowadays in the sense that they represent what we call now the primary market.