Pratiche speculative e resistenze del diritto: i contratti a termine sui valori mobiliari in Francia tra Ancien Régime e codificazione

In France, in the 18th century, forward contracts prevailed as the preferred instrument for deferred buying or selling of Government bonds. These business transactions, however, were viewed by legislators and certain parts of society with hostility. When the Napoleonic codification was subsequently introduced, this only partially modified the existing equilibrium. It was, therefore, more ‘thanks’ to jurisprudence in the 1830s, supported by the juridical science of the time, that contracts for differences – “marchés à terme fictif” – gradually achieved legal status. A review and analysis of the genesis of speculation in stock markets will be presented in this paper.