The Italian Association for Mathematics Applied to Social and Economic Sciences (AMASES) is a tightly knit mathematical society with a focused scope. It was founded in 1976 and gathers about 450 members, most of whom work or have professional collaborations in Italy. Its main goals center around promoting theoretical and applied research, as well as a more general awareness, in all areas of mathematics as applied to economics, finance, insurance, management, and social sciences at large.
The roots of AMASES lie in the fields of financial mathematics and actuarial sciences, where some of its intellectual forerunners used to work professionally before or along pursuing academic research. One was Francesco Paolo Cantelli (1875-1966) that spent 20 years at the National Institute for Security Deposits and Loans, before entering academia as a professor of actuarial mathematics and founding the Italian Actuarial Institute.
Similarly, Bruno de Finetti (1906-1985) spent 15 years with Assicurazioni Generali at the beginning of his career. In recognition of its intellectual debt towards him, AMASES named him Honorary President of the Association from 1983 until its death. Besides his roles as a staunch promoter of subjective probability, he managed to lead outstanding careers as a statistician and as an actuary, as well as being an influential thinker on social and political issues. His combination of talents and its impact in improving society is still an inspiring example for the AMASES community.
Around the ’60s, as the interplay between academia and mathematical business professions intensified, a small group of mathematicians from the faculties of Economics, Business Administration and Statistics throughout Italy realized the need for an institution devoted to coordinate and stimulate research and education in the mathematical applications for these fields. The first exploratory meeting took place in Trieste in 1966, attended by 15 distinguished applied mathematicians, including Bruno de Finetti himself, and Giuseppe Ottaviani (1914-1994), a beloved student of Cantelli at the Faculty of Economics in Rome and his natural academic heir.
The Association was officially established on the 27th of July 1976 by 35 founding fellows. Its first Annual Conference took place in Pisa on November 4-5, 1977. Since its inception, the official seat of the Association has been located in Milan (currently at Bocconi University).
AMASES has been holding its Annual Conference since 1977, typically in early September. Every conference hosts a few Invited Lectures, aimed to represent the range of approaches and applications pursued within the scope of the Association. This has now come to include fields as diverse as mathematical finance, economic theory, management science, decision and game theory, as well computational techniques. The special attention of AMASES towards computation has a long history, as witnessed by the fact that the last Honorary President, Mario Volpato (1915-2000), was one of the founders and vicepresident of CINECA, the largest Italian computing centre.
AMASES sponsors related research, and actively supports satellite thematic conferences and Summer schools. It has introduced special awards both for the best doctoral dissertations, and for the best papers presented by young researchers at the Annual Conference. Under the umbrella of the Italian Federation for Applied Mathematics, it has joined forces with the Italian Association for Operations Research (AIRO) and the Italian Association for Applied and Industrial Mathematics (SIMAI) to promote a wider spectrum of activities in applied mathematics.
AMASES has been publishing a scientific journal since 1978. Until 1999, the masthead was “Rivista di Matematica per le Scienze Economiche e Sociali” (Review of Mathematics for the Economic and Social Sciences) and the journal accepted papers in Italian, English, and French. In 2000, AMASES expanded the scope of the journal and gave it a more international slant. The title was changed to “Decisions in Economics and Finance: A Journal of Applied Mathematics” (nicknamed DEF), English became the only official language, while publication and technical assistance were entrusted with Springer-Verlag. The aims and scope state that DEF “provides a specialized forum for the publication of research in all areas of mathematics as applied to economics, finance, insurance, management and social sciences. Primary emphasis is placed on original research concerning topics in mathematics or computational techniques which are explicitly motivated by or contribute to the analysis of economic or financial problems.”
A presentation of AMASES has been published on EMS Newsletter in June 2015.
Past Presidents:
- Bruno Viscolani (2017-present);
- Achille Basile (2011-2016);
- Flavio Pressacco (2005-2010);
- Ernesto Volpe di Prignano (1999-2004);
- Giovanni Castellani (1993-1998);
- Luciano Daboni (1990-1992);
- Dario Furst (1985-1989);
- Claudio De Ferra (1981-1984);
- Luciano Daboni (1977-1980).
Honorary Presidents:
- Bruno de Finetti (1983-1985);
- Mario Volpato (1995-2000).
Founding fellows of AMASES:
Luigi Albano, Enzo Aparo, Fulvio Arcangeli, Paolo Bortot, Francesco Brioschi, Francesco Cacace, Giovanni Castellani, M.Alberto Coppini, Lucio Crisma, Michele Critani, Luciano Daboni, Claudio de Ferra, Bruno de Finetti, Mario Di Lazzaro, Alessandro Di Lorenzo, Filippo Emanuelli, Dario Furst, Guido Lisei, Umberto Magnani, Paolo Malesani, Paolo Manca, Ferruccio Minisola, Giuseppe Ottaviani, Massimiliano Ottaviani, Riccardo Ottaviani, Angelo Pistoia, Vittorio Provenza, Guido Rossi, Luigi Santoboni, Giorgio Szego, Mario Trovato, Giuseppe Varoli, Mario Volpato, Ernesto Volpe Di Prignano, Attilio Wedlin.
