You know, the one time I played Yor my econ was fine. Sure, I had to max efficiency studies and get the government techs early, but I happen to prefer passive econ bonuses to buildings. Although I did get trade centers off someone somehow - I forget if I bought it or got it from conquest. It's worth going for imo - an extra 5% universal eco and a cheap spammable eco building to fill up your spare planet slots.
So what you're saying is that techs that do not exist in the Yor tech tree can fix the problem caused by the fact that those techs do not exist in the Yor tech tree? Shocking! I'd never have imagined!
Yes, the Yor economy is fine if they can get government techs and spammable econ buildings form somebody else - but at that point, it's not the Yor economy any more. In the meantime, the Yor survive by maintaining large populations of tax paying robots on all their worlds, because they are able to collect less from each robot due to the lack of economy techs and government techs. It works, if not well, at least well enough.