Reinhard Selten - Life and Career

Life and Career

Selten was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia, now in Poland, to a Jewish father, Adolf Selten, and Protestant mother, Käthe Luther. For his work in game theory, Selten won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in bounded rationality, and can be considered as one of the founding fathers of experimental economics. He developed an example of a game called Selten's Horse because of its extensive form representation. He is noted for his publishing in non-refereed journals to avoid being forced to make unwanted changes to his work.

Selten is professor emeritus at the University of Bonn, Germany, and holds several honorary doctoral degrees. He has been an Esperantist since 1959., and met his wife through the Esperanto movement. He is a member and co-founder of the International Academy of Sciences San Marino.

For the European Parliament election, 2009, he was the top candidate for the German wing of Europe – Democracy – Esperanto.