Economics empiricism (sometimes economic imperialism) in contemporary economics refers to economic analysis of seemingly non-economic aspects of life, such as crime, law, the family, prejudice, tastes, irrational behavior, politics, sociology, culture, religion, war, science, and research. Related usage of the term predates recent decades.
The emergence of such analysis has been attributed to a method that, like that of the physical sciences, permits refutable implications testable by standard statistical techniques. Central to that approach are "[t]he combined postulates of maximizing behavior, stable preferences and market equilibrium, applied relentlessly and unflinchingly." It has been asserted that these and a focus on economic efficiency have been ignored in other social sciences and "allowed economics to invade intellectual territory that was previously deemed to be outside the discipline’s realm."