What Next for Experimental Economics? Searching for an Alternative Pathway Founded on Mathematical Methods

In this study, we seek to contribute to an increasingly emerging body of research which goes by the name of experimental economics. Specifically, we resort to the role of mathematics in enhancing the scope for experimental inquiry in economics. Starting from the basic approach to science, rather than merely show how economic theory served as a precursor to experimental economics, we challenge the standard experimental approach by emphasising the mathematical shifts in the interpretation of their contributions to social science. In so doing, we address some methodological issues concerning how experimental economics might view the evolution of its discipline. To this purpose, an algorithm is designed in order to show how the experimental approach to economics—even if not theory-driven but rather data-driven and theory-informed—might autonomously provide scientific results as a standalone method to study microeconomics. We expect the proposed algorithm to provide scientific results and facilitate the development and implementation of appropriate intelligent software tools applicable in different domains of economics and related disciplines, but also as an application that can be integrated into already existing design research and information systems.