ABSTRACT
Among economic methodologists, one often hears the slogan “contemporary (mainstream/neoclassical/modern) economics is dominated by mathematical model building” (see for instance Boland 2010, 530). The reason for repeating it here is to say upfront what this paper is not about: mathematical modelling. Instead I am going to look at a practice that is both older and, arguably, more widely used in economics than mathematical modelling: thought experimentation. It is older in that there are good examples that go back to at least classicism in economics, a period that did not know mathematical models yet. And it is more widely used in that one can find examples in both mainstream as well as heterodox schools in economics, including those that are not particularly fond of mathematical models. To name one, Austrian economists once believed thought experimentation to be “the” method by which economics proceeds.
