This approach, known as theoretical, deductive, or apriori method, may also be described as model methodology. The objective of economic modeling is to produce an abstract representation of a real economic context. Such a representation can be used to explain how the context works, to instruct about it, to forecast its behavior, and to simulate policy in regard to its function.
Economists regard modeling as a form of scientific method.
Such experimentation generates data which can serve as the basis for an inference about the validity of a scientific theory or hypothesis. Economists have only upon occasion undertaken experiments as a means of discerning the economic nature of the world. Several good reasons have been offered for the paucity of experimentation in economic inquiries. Social systems, economic mechanisms in particular, usually are regarded as too large and complex to be fitted into the confines of a laboratory. Indeed, young economists often are told that the world itself is their laboratory.