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I am concerned with insights heterodox economics, and particularly the new institution economics, can offer regarding interactions between health emergencies and the airline industry. Air services not only facilitates the transmissions of diseases among humans, and between animals, but on the positive side, can expedite the movement of medicines and the transfer of those afflicted during pandemics and epidemics. They can serve to limit the outbreak of disease by providing “mercy flights” to regions poorly served by other modes. Significant challenge confronting carriers during a major event, however, often included immediate financial shocks as well as ensuring their operations do not contribute to the spread of disease. These economic challenges for both commercial carriers and public policymakers involve sources of finance for what is, in this context, a semi-public service as well as the extent to which airlines should retain standby capacity extending resilience to the air-service supply chain. Conventional neoclassical economics, while still at the center of analyzing many of these sorts of issues, has increasingly, because of its rigid assumption and poor forecasting record, been supplemented by heterodox economic thinking. This trend has been reinforced by progress in fields such as psychology. What I demonstrate is that heterodox economics, and especially the role of institutions, offers a more complete picture of the interactions between air transportation and the spread of disease.

Extant research suggests that consumers value the pursuit, attainment and retention of income security and financial well-being (FWB). The authors aim to expand the relevant literature by examining how consumers' psychosocial characteristics affect and are affected by the pursuit of those objectives.

The authors utilize partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to evaluate the authors' hypotheses based on a sample of USA and Canadian consumers (n = 619).

The authors' PLS-SEM results provide support for the authors' hypotheses, indicating that individuals' insecure attachments – anxious and avoidant – relate negatively to their income security and FWB. The authors' results also show that these two desirable states relate positively to individuals' undesirable state of social loneliness.

The authors' methodology and findings illuminate the positioning of psychosocial factors as antecedents to and outcomes of income security and FWB. This research also provides a basis for understanding the linear vs curvilinear influences of income security on an individual’s social life.

In the present empirical study, the authors present a rare empirical examination of individuals' income security and FWB as outcomes of their psychosocial profile vis-à-vis insecure attachments. Drawing on established psychometric scales, this study expands the consumer psychology and FWB literature, showing significant linkages between insecure attachments, income security, FWB and social loneliness.