AIMS AND SCOPE
_____________________________________________________________________________________


Decision making under Keynesian and Knightian uncertainty: A centennial celebration of two seminal works, Keynes (1921) and Knight (1921). The main theme of this year’s conference on Decision Economics (DECON 2021) is inspired by and dedicated to two seminal works published by John M. Keynes (1883-1946) and Frank H. Knight (1885-1972) both in 1921, which continue to be of essential reference to this day in research on topics ranging from social to cognitive sciences as well as from philosophy to mathematics, statistics, and the whole quantitative-oriented research. The centennial celebration of Keynes’s A Treatise on Probability and Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit deals with issues of decision making in an environment inherently fraught with risk, uncertainty, ambiguity, and vagueness; it aims to map critically the dualism generated in the common sense of economics by the risk-uncertainty distinction on the one hand, and the uncertainty vs decision-making on the other. With uncertainty being central to human societies and playing a key evolutionary role in human social behaviour, it comes with no surprise that virtually every corner of social and cognitive science has sought to understand what uncertainty is, when and why it emerges, and how it influences economic behaviour, and much else besides. To be more specific, DECON 2021 intends to address how the above issues are understood and addressed by multifarious approaches among different disciplines and how these understandings have been manifested into established or novel routines, designs, methodologies, nudges, models, techniques, and analyses in a way that practical problems can be solved or managed. The centenary celebration of both of Knight’s and Keynes’s seminal works—and the great minds behind them—represents an opportunity in a class by itself to reassess and refine their impact and significance to Decision Economics as a novel discipline emerged in the last lustrum. Indeed, Keynes and Knight emphasised the importance of devising models for ambiguity/uncertainty and nondeterministic processes (i.e., unknown probabilities). Therefore, just as uncertainty is basically ubiquitous in economic decisions and everyday life, so too DECON 2021 suggests covering a wide range of topics to advance this intrinsic ubiquity. They may include, but not be limited to:


∎ Alternative assumptions and contingent solutions about risk and uncertainty and how they may drive future research progress;

∎ Normative and positive consequences of conjectures, expectations, and interpretations based on the reduction of uncertainty to risk;

∎ Developments in modelling preferences and attitudes to risk and uncertainty;

∎ Risky choice behaviour and decision paradoxes in designing new and increasingly complex derivative assets;

∎ Thrusting uncertainty onto businesses and consumers: Fuzzy modelling, financial risk, and delaying investment and spending;

∎ Does the financial sector produce an actual service to facilitate the real economy or is it a standalone uncertain commodity?

∎ Considering the consequences of reducing uncertainty rather than the effects of providing specific information especially when prior probabilities are biased;

∎ Progressive change in theories of decision-making under risk and uncertainty, e.g., about economic agents’ characteristics;

∎ Impact of data, information, and knowledge in raising the credibility of conditional statements and subjective probabilities;

∎ Consequences of decreasing the quality of the information available to economic agents and, more generally, to individuals;

∎ Developing mathematical models for uncertainty, applying them to real data, and learning about the underlying processes which give rise to the data;

∎ Probability spaces as models for uncertainty, and introduction to the corresponding mathematical and quantum analysis;

∎ The so-called Great Recession, just as if nothing was going to happen again: The terminal crisis of the hegemonic paradigm in economics and sciences related to economic principles;

∎ Uncertainty, risk, and the financial crisis started in 2007-2008: The failure of risk-management models;

∎ Natural disaster, pandemics, and risk-sharing behaviour: Evidence from and impact of COVID-19 outbreak;

∎ The role of value uncertainty in the divergence between measures of willingness to pay and willingness to accept in the time of pandemics;

∎ Uncertainty in data and science news stories affecting the public assessment of risk and uncertainty;

∎ Audience uncertainty and risk perceptions around the pandemic: Physical and mental health vs economic and financial health;

∎ The role of institutions and regulation for managing society’s economic and health risks;

∎ Reference to canonical as well as contemporary authors drawn from a diverse range of scientific literature on and around the subjects above.


These and related questions will be addressed within DECON 2021 by discussing together the relevant contributions and debates in the field. The conference will open by focusing on the lifetime contribution of the late Prof Paul P. Wang (1936-2021), the founder of the international journal New Mathematics and Natural Computation, especially his contribution on the mathematics of uncertainty and natural language, fuzzy mathematics, and computing with words. While through an engineering route, Prof Wang found his way to recognise the critical role of natural language and narratives in handling uncertainty. Much earlier before the advent of the era of digital humanities and what Robert J. Shiller coined as narrative economics, he had already pioneered the research on computing with words and attempted to pave a narrative framework to coping with radical or fundamental uncertainty. His vision and legacy may, therefore, provide us with further insights when we reread and ruminate over Knight (1921) and Keynes (1921) on this centenary event.


info@decision-economics.net



PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES
_____________________________________________________________________________________


DECON 2021 facilitates cross-fertilisation between theories, methodologies, and applications of decision-making and mathematical foundations of economics. All accepted papers will be included in a peer-reviewed special book published in the Computational Intelligence and Complexity series by Springer-Nature. Additionally, DECON’s Steering and Organising Committee has made a proposal for a special issue on “Pandemic-induced economic uncertainty: Could short-term problems become long-term ones?” to the Editorial Board of a peer-reviewed international economic Journal. If approved, participants in DECON 2021 will have the opportunity to submit their extended papers for consideration in it. Each author submitting her paper commit to adhere to the methodological rigour required and to provide feedback with fairness towards the Steering and Organising Committee.


The special books of this Series are indexed by the following abstracting and indexing services: SCOPUS, Google Scholar, Springerlink, EI-Compendex, ISI and DBLP.




INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
_____________________________________________________________________________________


Catered towards the relevant scientific and scholarly community, this year, too, the permanent Scientific Committee of DECON will award the best paper prize and the best paper application prize. In this regard, particular attention will be given to the methodological rigour and soundness of research, theoretical relevance, analytical accuracy and potential field contamination, including the quality of the study design, implementation, analysis as well as strength of evidence, with the appropriate differentiations between the two sections of the prize. The Committee is pleased to recall the winners of the international awards celebrated during the past edition: Jan Treur, from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, awarded for the best paper entitled "From Individual Decisions to Collective Decisions Changing the World"; and Juan Manuel Sánchez-Cartas, from Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, awarded for the best application paper entitled "Platform Competition and Consumer’s Decisions: An ABM Simulation of Pricing with Different Behavioral Rules".




STEERING AND ORGANISING COMMITTEE
_____________________________________________________________________________________


Despite DECON 2021 being hosted by the World Heritage Site of Salamanca within the historic Colegio Arzobispo Fonseca on 6th-8th October 2021, it was planned to hold the Conference in hybrid mode, both on site and online/remotely. Recorded presentations will also be allowed. For further information, please contact DECON’s Secretariat at (info@decision-economics.net) and / or the Steering and Organising Committee:



Edgardo Bucciarelli, University of Chieti‐Pescara (Italy)

edgardo.bucciarelli@unich.it



Shu‐Heng Chen, National Chengchi University, Taipei (Taiwan)

chchen@nccu.edu.tw



Juan Manuel Corchado, University of Salamanca (Spain)

corchado@usal.es



Javier Parra Domínguez, University of Salamanca (Spain)

javierparra@usal.es





KEYNOTE SPEAKER
_____________________________________________________________________________________


TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON

New this year, there will be opportunities to interact with the Keynote Speaker in an additional 'lobby question and answer' session: Keep an eye out for more to be announced soon!

The keynote session will be followed by a memorial session for Prof Paul Wang.

The opening address will be delivered by Prof Shu-Heng Chen.





FORMAT
_____________________________________________________________________________________


The authors of all submitted papers are required to format their work according to the AISC template, with a maximum length of 10 pages (minimun 4 pages) including figures and references:

Microsoft word format.
Latex Format.




SUBMISSION
_____________________________________________________________________________________


All proposed papers must be submitted in electronic form (PDF format) using the DECON 2021 conference management system.





IMPORTANT DATES
_____________________________________________________________________________________


General deadline: --31st May, 2021-- 15th June, 2021
Notification of acceptance: --19th June, 2021-- 30th June, 2021
Camera-Ready papers: --28th June, 2021-- 9th July, 2021
Conference Celebration: 6th-8th October, 2021




ORGANIZERS
_____________________________________________________________________________________


University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy)

National Chengchi University, Taipei (Taiwan)

University of Salamanca (Spain)





SPONSORS
_____________________________________________________________________________________


IBM
INDRA




SUPPORT FROM NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
_____________________________________________________________________________________


AEPIA
APPIA
AFIA