Economics experiments are actually a thing. You can have natural experiments, or you can uncover patterns in data, or you can try controlled experiments (in microeconomics), though that sometimes just feels like applied psychology. I dunno, I've never formally studied it.

But I have read NBER papers, and can confirm that there is real research. It's not a hard science, but among the social sciences it's pretty rigorous, and often very quantitative. I know how this crowd likes it quantitative.