On the System or Theory of the Trade of the World is an immediate precursor to the first modern economic texts, written by Isaac Gervaise and published in 1720. Along with several other early economic texts, Gervaise was building on the efforts to understand the catastrophic damage that the unstable value of gold had wreaked upon Europe during the two centuries of price revolution that had occurred up to that point. During that period, the importation of gold from the New World had caused relatively enormous inflation in Europe, especially Spain, with fluctuations of deflation in between.