Experimental market economics began with a burst of papers and books from 1959 to 1963: Hoggatt (1959), Sauermann and Selten (1959, 1960), Siegel and Fouraker (1960), Fouraker, Shubik, and Siegel (1961), Smith (1962), Fouraker and Siegel (1963), Suppes and Carlsmith (1962), and Friedman (1963). Many of us were unaware of the parallel research being conducted almost simultaneously by others. E. H. Chamberlin's (1948) precursory study of an informal exchange market had directly influenced the first experiments I conducted in the period 1956–60. This constitutes the published background to the nine papers appearing in the first part of this collection.

The unpublished background includes my significant encounter with Sidney Siegel, reported in my essay “Experimental Economics at Purdue” (1981). One can only speculate as to the course of experimental economics in the last quarter century had it not been for Sid Siegel's untimely death in the autumn of 1961. My opinion is that his energy and towering intellectual competence and technique as an experimental scientist would have accelerated greatly the development of experimental economics. Had he lived there would have been a sustained effort in experimental economics at another institution besides Purdue University. It appears that he has no intellectual descendants in psychology, but many in economics, although few of the latter may be fully aware of their heritage.