Nineteenth century French economist attributed with the introduction of the theory of profit maximizing producers. In his masterpiece, The Recherches, published in 1838, Cournot presented his idea of oligopoly, monopoly, and ideal competition. In demonstrating the equilibrium of his oligopoly game, Cournot introduced a form of best-reply dynamics; in which each firm decide the quantity that maximizes its profit in answer to the total industry output of the earlier period.