Reinhard Selten

Reinhard Selten
Selten in 2001
Born	Reinhard Justus Reginald Selten (1930-10-05)5 October 1930 Breslau,Weimar GermanyWrocław,Poland)
Died	23 August 2016(2016-08-23)(aged 85) Poznań,Poland
Nationality	German
Education	Goethe University Frankfurt
Known for	Game theory
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences(1994)
Scientific career
Fields	Economics
Institutions	University of Bonn Free University of Berlin
Doctoral advisor	Wolfgang Franz
Doctoral students	Eric van Damme Rosemarie Nagel

Reinhard Justus Reginald Selten(German:[ˈʁaɪnhaʁtˈzɛltn̩];5 October 1930 – 23 August 2016) was a Germaneconomist,who won the 1994Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences(shared withJohn HarsanyiandJohn Nash). He is also well known for his work inbounded rationalityand can be considered one of the founding fathers ofexperimental economics.

Biography

Selten was born inBreslau (Wrocław)inLower Silesia,now inPoland,to aJewishfather, Adolf Selten (a blind bookseller; d. 1942), andProtestantmother, Käthe Luther.Reinhard Selten was raised as Protestant.

After a brief family exile in Saxony and Austria, Selten returned to Hesse, Germany, after the war and, in high school, read an article inFortunemagazine about game theory by the business writerJohn D. McDonald.He recalled later, he would occupy his "mind with problems of elementary geometry and algebra" while walking back and forth to school during that time.He studied mathematics atGoethe University Frankfurtand obtained his diploma in 1957. He then worked as scientific assistant to Heinz Sauermann until 1967. In 1959, he married with Elisabeth Langreiner. They had no children. In 1961, he also received his doctorate in Frankfurt in mathematics with a thesis on the evaluation of n-person games.

He was a visiting professor atBerkeleyand taught from 1969 to 1972 at theFree University of Berlinand, from 1972 to 1984, at theUniversity of Bielefeld.He then accepted a professorship at theUniversity of Bonn.There he built the BonnEconLab, a laboratory for experimental economic research, where he was active even after his retirement.

Selten was professor emeritus at theUniversity of Bonn,Germany, and held several honorary doctoral degrees. He had been anEsperantistsince 1959and met his wife through the Esperanto movement.He was a member and co-founder of theInternational Academy of Sciences San Marino.

For the2009 European Parliament election,he was the top candidate for the German wing ofEurope – Democracy – Esperanto.

Work

For his work ingame theory,Selten won the 1994Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences(shared withJohn HarsanyiandJohn Nash). Selten was Germany's first and, at the time of his death, only Nobel winner for economics.

He is also well known for his work inbounded rationality,and can be considered one of the founding fathers ofexperimental economics.WithGerd Gigerenzerhe edited the bookBounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox(2001). He developed an example of a game called Selten's Horse because of its extensive form representation. His last work was "Impulse Balance Theory and its Extension by an Additional Criterion".

He is noted for his publishing in non-refereed journals to avoid being forced to make unwanted changes to his work.

Bibliography

• Preispolitik der Mehrproduktenunternehmung in der statischen Theorie, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag, 1970,ISBN978-3-642-48888-7- inGerman
• General Equilibrium with Price-Making Firms (with Thomas Marschak), Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag, 1974, ISBN 978-3-662-07369-8
• A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games (withJohn C. Harsanyi), Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT-Press. (1988)
• Models of Strategic Rationality, Theory and Decision Library, Series C: Game Theory, Mathematical Programming and Operations Research, Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (1988)
• Game Equilibrium Models IV, Berlin, New York, Springer Verlag, 1991, ISBN 978-3-662-07369-8.
• Rational Interaction - Essays in Honor of John C. Harsanyi, Berlin, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1992, ISBN 978-3-642-08136-1.
• Enkonduko en la Teorion de Lingvaj Ludoj – Ĉu mi lernu Esperanton? (withJonathan Pool), Berlin-Paderborn: Akademia Libroservo, Institut für Kybernetik. (1995) – inEsperanto
• Game Theory and Economic Behavior: Selected Essays, 2. vol Cheltenham-Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing. (1999)
• New edition of: Models of Strategic Rationality (1988), with a Chinese Introduction. Outstanding Academic Works on Economics by Nobel Prize Winners. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (2000)
• Chinese Translation of: Models of Strategic Rationality (1988). Outstanding Academic Works on Economics by Nobel Prize Winners. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (2000)
• Russian Translation of: A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games (with John C. Harsanyi), Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT-Press. (2000)
• Gigerenzer, G., & Selten, R. (Eds.). (2001). Bounded rationality: The adaptive toolbox. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
• Impulse Balance Theory and its Extension by an Additional Criterion. BoD. (2015)

See also

• Subgame perfect Nash equilibrium
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links

• Laboratory for Experimental Economics,at theUniversity of Bonn, Germany
• Reinhard Seltenon Nobelprize.org
• IDEAS/RePEc
• Reinhard Seltenat theMathematics Genealogy Project
• Economista alemán, nacido en Breslau (actualmente Wroclaw, en Polonia).
• "Reinhard Selten (1930– )".The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.Library of Economics and Liberty(2nd ed.).Liberty Fund.2008.