Traditionally, students of economics have often been told that it is a non-experimental science. Using a quantitative … and qualitative analysis of introductory economics textbooks, we track the historical evolution of this rhetoric from 1970 … experimentation in economics. Remarks that experiments are impossible in economics have been (almost) eliminated only this decade …

The emergence of experimental economics in the last third of the 20th century revisited the long-standing belief that … economics is a non-experimental discipline. The history of this new practice reveals this went further than simply introducing … the experimental method to economics. Its history shows individual economists and research communities above all …