LIVE: The Myth of the Million Dollar Tulip Bulb

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

01/20/23 • 38 min

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Recorded before an audience at the Bristol Festival of Economics (11/17/2022)

The Dutch went so potty over tulip bulbs in the 1600s that many were ruined when the inflated prices they were paying for the plants collapsed - that's the oft-repeated story later promoted by best-selling Scottish writer Charles Mackay. It's actually a gross exaggeration.

Mackay's writings about economic bubbles bursting entertained and informed his Victorian readers - and continue to influence us today - but how did Mackey fare when faced with a stock market mania right before his eyes? The railway-building boom of the 1840s showed he wasn't so insightful after all.

For a full list of sources used in this episode visit Tim Harford.com

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01/20/23 • 38 min

3 Listeners

5.0

(1)

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - LIVE: The Myth of the Million Dollar Tulip Bulb

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:15.369

Pushkin. This episode of Cautionary Tales is all about speculation, scrambles for shares and spring flowers, and it was recorded in front of a live audience at the Bristol Festival of Economics. If you'd like to explore these ideas in print, I'm writing about them in a cover story for The Financial Times magazine that's available in the UK in print on the twenty eighth of January or online at FT dot com. Now the stage is set, enjoy a special live