Reinhard Selten's Impact on Ec

             Following his stint at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Selten began working as an assistant to Professor Heinz Sauermann of the University of Frankfurt am Main. During this period, Selten became involved in economic laboratory experimentation, despite the fact that he was originally supposed to be working in applying decision theory. His new research direction was accepted, however, and this led to Selten's first publication. "Ein Oligopolexperiment" was a journal article co-written with Sauermann concerning oligopoly experimentation conducted by Selten and his assistants. Before Selten started work at Frankfurt, this area of experimental economics had not yet existed. However, the young research assistant tried the approach, figuring he could mesh experimental psychology with oligopoly.
             After receiving his Ph.D. in 1961, Selten had the distinct opportunity of meeting and discussing game theory with one of the innovators that had shaped his approach to economics. Oskar Morgenstern met with Selten many times in Frankfurt in the early 1960's and even helped fund for him to come to Princeton University to participate in conferences. .
             Around this time period, Selten began to experiment with oligopoly again, this time involving demand inertia. When he tried to analyze the model he was examining, he found the situation too difficult, resorting himself to solve a simplified version. Out of this solution came one of his many contributions to experimental economics: subgame perfectness. This was later adapted by Selten in 1975 as "trembling hand perfectness". The name stems from the phenomena of a player (in game theory) suspecting a small probability that a mistake will occur by seeing the tremble of another player's hand. .
             Reinhard Selten actually began work with John Harsanyi in 1965. The two began their long professional relationship at a workshop for game theory in Jerusalem that year.