https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_economics
Experimental economics is the application of experimental methods[1] to study economic questions. Data collected in experiments are used to estimate effect size, test the validity of economic theories, and illuminate market mechanisms. Economic experiments usually use cash to motivate subjects, in order to mimic real-world incentives. Experiments are used to help understand how and why markets and other exchange systems function as they do. Experimental economics have also expanded to understand institutions and the law (experimental law and economics).
Can't dig up anything now but a lot of phenomena in papers (though of course far from all /majority) do or reference some sort of quantitative research).
Where empirical studies were actually available, they usually had large numbers of parameters, they did not test on diverse datasets (e.g. Philips curves across different economies), and they never considered an alternative hypothesis or simple baseline.
It was a gong moment for me when I came across a short passage discussing its foundedness.
* Freedman, Pisani and Purves Statistics, 4th edition (p153)
More than any other social science, economics has adopted this approach. Experimental fields (Psychology, Medicine) never really had to deal with observational data. Many approaches are not new to statistics, to be sure, but many have been implemented and refined in econometrics. Courses in political science, sociology and management, for example, largely use econometric textbooks and papers nowadays.
Why is that the case? Other social sciences have been more data driven before. That is to say, they lacked a coherent theoretical framework that would alert them to causality issues. Economics was early to adopt causal analysis techniques from stats - and look for observational equivalents to experimental science approaches - because the theory framework showed early on that regression based approaches (still being done a lot in sociology and management, for example) are usually not a good idea.
It is all a trade-off. Yes, these models are often not accurate, sometimes outright wrong. But, formal theories give you precise assumptions and causal chains, which means they can be quickly discarded as paradigms (General Equilibrium, Game Theoretic Equilibrium Refinements), and crucially, they tell you about empirical issues. This has happened to a MUCH SMALLER degree in social sciences that do not have these formal theories!
The notion that economics is behind in terms of empirical approaches compared to other observational social sciences is just not correct.
I will give you the point that econ textbooks are often bad in that regard. I mean, the standard micro textbook for grads is really just a treatment of differential manifolds with other names. But those textbooks are not to be read isolation. Intro textbooks I saw, on the other hand, do have real data.
I think Geology and Biology do have a lot of theories, too. Would you say the theory of evolution is bunk and you should just collect data and leave it at that?