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, loc. 1915