Depends which kind of economics you mean. There's a lot of theoretical mathematics economics that is pretty much applied maths. It can provide some insight into real economics but economists often get carried away with that because it makes the wildly incorrect assumption that everyone is rational and has perfect information.

Then there's economics that tries to take actual people into account, which you basically have to do by experiment. E.g. one thing I looked up recently: do blind auctions or open bids gain more profit (answer was inconclusive). That's more like social science. More relevant questions but less reliable answers.