Music-related decision making encompasses a wide range of behaviours including those associated with composition and performance, listening choices, and decisions involving music education and therapy. Although research programmes in psychology and economics have contributed to an improved understanding of music-related behaviour, historically these disciplines have been unconnected. Recently however, researchers have begun to bridge this gap by employing tools from behavioural economics. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a discussion about the benefits of using behavioural economics in music-decision research. We achieve this in two ways. First, through a systematic review, we identify the current state of the literature within four key areas of behavioural economics – heuristics and biases, social decision making, behavioural time preferences, and dual-process theory. Second, taking findings of the literature as a starting point, we demonstrate how behavioural economics can inform future research. Based on this, we propose the Behavioural Economics of Music (BEM), an integrated research programme that aims to break new ground by stimulating interdisciplinary research in the intersection between music, psychology, and economics.
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