What causes a society to reallocate property rights? The canonical explanation is the one offered by Harold Demsetz in "Toward a Theory of Property Rights"--that societies adopt new property regimes when some external shock alters the costs and benefits of an existing regime such that it becomes...

A small number of early nineteenth-century New York stockbrokers built, from scratch, an organization that by the end of the century would be one of the most powerful nongovernmental bodies in the world. The origin and the early growth of the New York Stock and Exchange Board can be attributed...

Cover -- Speculation -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. The Land of Speculation -- 2. Betting on Prices -- 3. The Anti-​Option Era -- 4. Selling Blue Sky -- 5. Aftershocks of the Crash -- 6. Land and Onions -- 7. Inside Information -- 8....