We have great pleasure in welcoming all readers to this special issue which includes a selection of the papers presented at the VII International Meeting on the Dynamics of Social-Economic Systems (DySES), along with other papers submitted after the meeting. This conference was hosted by the Faculty of Tourism and Finance, University of Seville on 16–18 September 2014 and co-organized by the University of Seville, the University of Sannio and the DySES Association. This edition of the conference was devoted to the memory of Araceli Noemi Proto, President of the DySES Society, who died unexpectedly in May 2013.
For some historical background, the first conferences in this series took place at the National University of La Plata in La Plata City, capital of the State of Buenos Aires, at the Faculty of Engineering (1998) and at the Faculty of Juridical and Social Sciences (2001). In 2005, the third conference was held at the Universidad CAECE (Mar del Plata, Argentina), and was included as one of the Argentinian meetings of the World International Physics Year. The fourth conference (2009) also took place in Argentina, at the coastal city of Pinamar, where the international character was consolidated, as half of the participants came from Europe and the USA. Further reflecting the international interest, the fifth conference (2010) moved to Europe and took place in Benevento, Italy. The sixth conference (2012) returned to Argentina and took place in Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, which is regarded as the southernmost city in the world.
The primary aim of these meetings is to bring together scientists working on the development of time-dependent models able to describe and evaluate social and economic situations, and to make future predictions. Statistical techniques include, but are not limited to, time series forecasting, inferential procedures, nonlinear dynamic system modelling and other methods able to predict future behavior of these systems in order to contribute to the process of decision-making.
This special issue contains 10 papers with the range of scientific specialties of the authors demonstrating the inter-disciplinary nature of this work and the wide-spread interest in the use of rigorous mathematical and statistics techniques in the study of complex real-world social-economic systems. We hope that this volume becomes a valuable resource for future researchers and decision makers.