A Social Network for Trade and Inventories of Stock during the South Sea Bubble

A social network of stock trading is defined for the notorious South Sea Bubble of 1720. It is a flow network defined in terms of pass-through and core pass-through, which have convenient properties with respect to inventories. These are all useful concepts when examining a liquidity crisis, financial intermediation and the changing social structure of trade. We find that there may have been a liquidity crisis suffered by goldsmith bankers before the Bubble, a gradual path towards dis-intermediation after the Bubble and a switch from intermediation based upon brokerage to intermediation based upon dealership.