> What were they doing before this? "Unempirical" economics? Building tractable mathematical models. Explain phenomenons. Empirical results are used to validat

> What were they doing before this? "Unempirical" economics? Building tractable mathematical models. Explain phenomenons. Empirical results are used to validate these days. A classic model is supply & demand curves -- as price increases supply increases, demand falls, with certain exceptions. Empiricists have spent significant effort doing RCTs to demonstrate the model works and there are exceptions. The model stands tall even today.