Prior experiments determine which economic facts even become available and plausible

Evidence

This dependence has important consequences. The outcome of the experiment will be shaped by the earlier experiments that made it possible. Not every research project will produce facts as improbable as those examined here. But the prior experiments will make some kinds of data available and not others; will provoke certain intuitions that appear to make sense of them and not others; will suggest one set of arguments derived from these intuitions and not others; will give them the plausibility they need to circulate when other arguments would fail to impress; will provide academic economics with material to promote a more empirical approach to the discipline; and will offer routes to feed the conclusions back into further political projects and programs. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1986

Categorization

• QUESTION: Which specific prior experiments shaped the later ones — worth tracing the actual chain for the Kenya voucher study.
• XREF: Fits the path-dependence theme in economics-of-science work and Kuhn’s paradigm-bound observation, plus the collection’s overall argument on how policy experiments feed back into politics. — connects to: Empirical fact-finding improves substantially with prior theoretical groundwork. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 986; Neoliberal restructuring programs served as whole-economy experiments producing economic facts. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1917; Economics tests claims by treating the world itself as a laboratory. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1915 (+4 more)