Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Rome and the Papal State: Old Customs and the New Kingdom of Italy -- Chapter 3: Finance and Banking -- Chapter 4: Structural Elements of the Rome Stock Exchange: Regulations, Price Lists and Intermediaries -- Chapter 5: The Rome Stock Exchange and the...

Major bubble episodes are rare events. In this paper, we examine what factors might cause some asset price bubbles to become very large. We recreate, in a laboratory setting, some of the specific institutional features investors in the South Sea Company faced in 1720. Several factors have been...