The scope of deduction, induction and abduction (inference to the best explanation) in economics is discussed in this chapter. Although an essential and pervasive component in economic reasoning related to the analysis of open real-world systems, abduction is hardly mentioned in the methodology of economics literature. Explanatory features – often left unaccounted for by formal logic: deductivist methods – should be an important part of the rational evaluation of scientific hypotheses and inferences. A theory or model has to be a successful explainer of the facts we try to describe and analyse. For economics to be a relevant knowledge-generating project, given ever-changing ontological conditions, abduction should be given a central role in the inferences made in real-world contexts with incomplete information and uncertainty. Reasons are given for believing that ampliative abduction, as an inferential method, in most real-world economic contexts outperforms formal logic using both deduction and induction.