Economics tests claims by treating the world itself as a laboratory.

Evidence

Like all sciences, economics faces the task of persuading people that what it says is true. To strengthen its arguments, it must sometimes try and put them to the test. But compared to laboratory sciences, it faces a particular difficulty in establishing empirical evidence. The sociotechnical world that economics describes cannot easily be rendered testable. For this reason, compared to many other sciences, economics attaches less importance to having clear tests and often seems to pride itself on not needing them. The manipulation of statistical data provides the most common way around this difficulty, while experimental economics offers a more specialized approach. Occasionally, however, academic economics employs another method for advancing and testing its arguments. It is sometimes able to use the world as a laboratory. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1915

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the world-as-laboratory concept: economics’ distinctive site for empirical testing, distinct from statistics manipulation and experimental economics.
• XREF: Links to Callon’s performativity thesis and to the broader sociology-of-economics-literature tradition. — connects to: Neoliberal restructuring programs served as whole-economy experiments producing economic facts. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1917; Experimental findings in economics circulate and reinforce the facts of the field — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1980; Economists’ natural experiments depend on infrastructure built by real-world projects — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1940 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Experimental findings in economics circulate and reinforce the facts of the field #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1980
• Economic models resist testing because agents self-select into treatments #qualifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1935
• Economists’ natural experiments depend on infrastructure built by real-world projects #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1940
• Prior experiments determine which economic facts even become available and plausible #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1986
• Economic concepts actively constitute the economic behavior they describe #qualifies (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 105
• Neoliberal policy experiments are preconditions that make economic research findings possible #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1955