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Was This Episode a “Tulipmania”?
I now examine whether the evidence demands a mania interpretation for the tulip price movements. First, I will dispose of two nagging issues: (1) the absence of descriptions of economic distress in accounts of the period not engaged in antispeculative moralizing, and (2) the claims that the disappearance of renowned bulbs or their extreme price declines over long time periods signal the lunacy of the event. Next, I will isolate the aspect of the speculation for which the evidence provides no compelling explanation, the trading in common bulbs in the period from January 2, 1637, to February 5, 1637. Where Was the Purported Economic Distress? Economic histories of the important events and institutions in the Netherlands during this period are detailed, but they hardly mention the tulip speculation. For example, volumes IV and V of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Rich and Wilson 1975, 1977) do not
