The special session on Decision Economics (DECON) is a scientific forum held annually and
intended to share ideas projects research results models and experiences associated with the
complexity of behavioural decision processes and socio-economic phenomena. DECON 2017 was held
at the Polytechnic of Porto ISEP Portugal as part of the 14th International Conference on
Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence. For the second consecutive year the Editors
of this book have drawn inspiration from Herbert A. Simon's immense body of work and argue that
Simon precipitated something akin to a revolution in microeconomics focused on the concept of
decision-making. Further it is worth noting that the recognition of relevant decision-making
takes place in a range of critical subject areas and research fields including economics
finance information systems small and international business management operations and
production. Therefore decision-making issues are of fundamental importance in all branches of
economics addressed both deductively and inductively. Not surprisingly the study of
decision-making has seen growing empirical research efforts in the economic literature over the
last sixty years and more recently a variety of insightful cutting-edge experimental
behavioural and computational approaches. Additionally the awareness regarding generalizations
and reductions to express economic concepts has led on the one hand to an increasing risk of
spreading the language of mathematics as a rhetorical tool and on the other hand to an
oversimplification and overlooking of some crucial details especially when it comes to human
decisions and hence economic behaviour. That awareness however has helped toproduce an
extraordinary volume of empirical research aimed at discovering how economic agents cope with
complex decisions. In this sense the international scientific community acknowledges Herbert
A. Simon's research endeavours to understand the processes involved in economic decision-making
and their implications for the advancement of economic professions. Within the field of
decision-making indeed Simon's rejection of the standard decision-making models used in
neoclassical economics inspired social scientists worldwide to develop research programmes in
order to study decision-making empirically. The main achievements concern decision-making for
individuals firms markets governments institutions and last but not least science and
research.
