Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 2003

for the idea of ‘subgame perfection'. In the 1970s he came to see that the model he had proposed there needed a further refinement to take into account the mistakes that w i l l always comp l i ca te the i n t e r ac t i ons of players in reality. This refinement is n ow referred to i n the field as ‘trembling hand perfection' and is another concept for which Prof. Selten is famous. After his successful habilitation Prof. Selten became a full professor in economics of Berlin i n 1972. He soon mo v ed to the University of Bielefeld where he had the l u x u ry of wo r k i ng i n a small institute i n w h i c h all the p r o f e s s o rs we re game theorists. In the meantime he had started c o l l a b o r a t i ng w i t h h is f e l l ow N o b e l Laureate John Harsanyi, i n a project that has something to tell us about the time r equ i r ed by f u n d ame n t al advances i n human understanding. He describes the project as taking many years: After John Harsanyi and I had completed our wo rk on bargaining under incomplete information we decided to attack the problem of selecting a unique equilibrium for every game. He t w i ce came to Bielefeld for a year and I often visited Berkeley for short periods of one or t wo months. It took us about 18 years to c on s t r u ct a r easonab le g e n e r al t h e o ry of equilibrium selection i n games. In this t i me we considered ma ny ideas and rejected t wo fairly well worked out approaches. Our book of 1988 only describes the theory we finally agreed on. Succeeding generations who benefit f r o m the care and p a t i e n ce of s u ch profound wo rk can be grateful that it d id not have to fall into the r h y t hm and demands set b y c o n t e m p o r a r y bureaucratic approaches to research assessment. P r o f . S e l t e n h as received many prizes and awa r ds f or his f amous w o r k . He has received h o n o r a ry degrees f r om t h e u n i v e r s i t i e s o f B i e l e f e l d, F r a n k f u r t, G r a z, B r e s l au, Sh a n g h ai J i a o t o n g, N o r w i c h ( USA ), Cachan, Innsbruck, Indiana, and Qingdao. He is c u r r e n t ly Professor Eme r i t us of Economics at the University of Bonn. At The Chinese University he has been a Wei L u n V i s i t i ng Professor on a visit hos t ed by the As ia Pacific I ns t i t u te of Bus i ness at t he F a c u l ty of Bus i ness A d m i n i s t r a t i o n. He g a ve a h i g h l y successful lecture on Game Theory here i n 2002. He has established links w i t h the Un i v e r s i t y 's Depa r tment of Economics a nd has b e en g i v i n g a d v i ce on t he development of its academic and research programmes. Mr. Chairman, Prof. Reinhard Selten is a man whose p r o f o u nd ma t h ema t i c al i n s i gh ts and economic research have defined the intellectual contours w i t h i n which his successors now think and work. It is truly an honour to present h i m to you for the award of the degree of Doctor of Social Science, honoris causa. A citation written by Prof. David Parker He realized that the solutions to the problems he was interested in could not be found simply by reflecting on them in his armchair. The reason is that economic behaviour is not fully rational, but only rational within certain boundaries. Because of this, he needed to subject his hypotheses to the test of empirical observation. The 60th Congregation 63