author
John Law
1671–1729
A brilliant and reckless financial thinker, he helped change how Europe imagined money, credit, and economic power. His dramatic rise in France—and the collapse of the Mississippi Scheme—made him one of the most controversial figures in early modern finance.
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About the author
Born in Edinburgh in April 1671, he was a Scottish economist and financier who later became deeply involved in French public finance. Britannica describes him as a monetary reformer and the originator of the Mississippi Scheme, while Wikipedia notes that he became a major figure in France through his banking and financial experiments.
He is remembered for arguing that money and credit could be used more actively to stimulate trade and strengthen the state. Those ideas helped make him influential at the French court, where he promoted paper money, banking reform, and large-scale trading companies.
His fame is tied to both innovation and disaster. The boom and crash surrounding his system in 1720 made his name a byword for speculation, yet his wider legacy has endured because later economists and historians have continued to see him as an important early thinker about banking, money, and financial policy.