In the last few years, there has been increasing interest from the economic community in the use of techniques from decision theory. The traditional concept of rationality of choices, is derived by the neoclassic theory. In this flavour, a prescriptive approach "Decision theory" helps a decision maker to choose among a set of alternatives in light of their possible outcomes; it traditionally can apply to conditions of certainty, risk, or uncertainty. The assumption of rationality is both one of the most important and most controversial assumptions of modern economics. In fact, it is also the base of the impossibility to compare the utility among different individuals.
Recently, this approach has been questioned by a descriptive approach that springing from the evolutionary biology and from the cognitive science, try to give a scientific basis to the way in which individual really choose.
In fact, current research on decision-making indicates that there are important ways in which individuals do not conform to standard economic models. However, it would be a mistake to conclude from this that individuals should be labelled irrational. The research indicates that individuals who are behaving irrationally under prescriptive notions of rationality are often behaving consistently with more emotional notions of rationality. However, much more work needs to be done to understand the precise nature of human decision-making. According to some visions the possibility to reconcile the tension among the approaches could be sought after neuroeconomics and experimental economics; according to other approaches could be sought by the weakening of the narrow prescriptive boundary of the neoclassic approach. In this context the difference between the concept of "salience" and of "pregnancy" seems very important.
The conference will try to develop a methodological and theoretical synthesis of a number of problems that arise in decision theory and choices related to current research, with a specific emphasis on their implications for public policy. The scope of the conference is, among others, to exchange experience between scientists working in decision theory and practitioners.