The research library

Evidence, arguments, and tradeoffs in personal finance. Every paper, in publication order. Read independently; there is no required sequence.

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Fee comparison
Set costs, contributions, and horizon.
Distribution sources
Separate cash paid from cash earned.
Employer-stock transition
Compare tax paid with risk retained.
Crypto sleeve stress
Test a loss budget, not a target price.
Household cash runway
Compare a cash reserve with the disruption it must fund.
Cash-first or parallel investing
Compare reserve policies under the same saving budget.
Behavior and advice fees
Compare disciplined DIY, mistimed DIY, and advice after fees.
Advice fee hurdle
Price the finite mistake an ongoing fee must prevent.
Early-access route map
Separate plan access, income tax, and additional-tax exceptions.
Roth conversion bridge
Follow waiting periods, spending, and conversion-tax cash.
SEPP commitment
Inspect payment assumptions and the required timeline.
401(k) versus taxable
Compare after-tax outcomes at the same take-home cost.

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All 12 publications

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01

Costs & risk

The Arithmetic of Fees

What do recurring costs do to long-horizon wealth?

How recurring costs, inflation, and allocation assumptions affect long-horizon wealth.

Identity + modeled Evidence reviewed: July 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Monthly cash-flow recursion and seeded return paths

What you can explore
Change contributions, horizon, allocation, inflation, returns, and fee levels.

Boundary
No taxes, withdrawal phase, stochastic inflation, or individualized portfolio constraints.
02

Costs & risk

A Wide & Deep Pond

Why does diversification change the range of outcomes?

Why diversification changes the range of outcomes even when expected return looks similar.

Measured + modeled Evidence reviewed: July 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Closed-form calibration, historical records, and seeded return paths

What you can explore
Compare market and single-stock outcomes, portfolio width, and speculative sleeves.

Boundary
Historical samples and calibrated return distributions are descriptive, not forecasts.
03

Income & taxes / Costs & risk

The Yield Illusion

When is investment income a label for total return?

How dividends, option premiums, and leveraged products relate to total return after friction.

Identity + measured + modeled Evidence reviewed: July 2026
Choose a chapter

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
After-tax identities, option payoffs, product records, and daily return paths

What you can explore
Change tax rates, option assumptions, leverage, volatility, fees, and holding period.

Boundary
Tax and product examples are simplified and depend on account, jurisdiction, and period.
04

Household decisions / Income & taxes / Purpose & behavior

The Myth Ledger

Where do familiar personal-finance rules stop working?

Ten familiar rules tested against theory, evidence, examples, and household boundaries.

Literature review + illustrative Evidence reviewed: August 2026
Choose a chapter

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Evidence ledger with foundation, measurement, model, and boundary labels

What you can explore
Test how assumptions change examples involving saving, housing, debt, and investing.

Boundary
A rule can be incomplete without being wrong for every household or circumstance.
05

Income & taxes / Household decisions / Costs & risk

Closed-End Funds as Retirement Income

What does an income-first closed-end-fund strategy establish?

A CEF retirement strategy tested against distribution accounting, wrapper risk, and simple benchmarks.

Evidence review + modeled Evidence reviewed: August 2026
Choose a chapter

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Claim audit, distribution accounting, deterministic stress cases, and seeded sensitivity paths

What you can explore
Inspect distribution sources, matched exposures, stress cases, sleeve size, and reserves.

Boundary
Public evidence cannot reproduce a proprietary portfolio record; modeled cases are not forecasts.
06

Household decisions / Income & taxes / Costs & risk

The Employer Stock Transition Guide

How should a household price the decision to diversify employer stock?

How to diversify employer stock while pricing taxes, fees, implementation, and retained risk.

Decision framework + modeled Evidence reviewed: August 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Household exposure, tax-lot, transition, charitable, and recurring-fee calculations

What you can explore
Enter exposure, basis, losses, tax assumptions, sale schedule, and proposal fees.

Boundary
Employer rules and individual tax, legal, charitable, and estate facts require professional review.
07

Costs & risk / Household decisions / Purpose & behavior

The House Percentage

What does the vig take, and how sharp do you have to be to clear it?

Posted betting prices, parlay juice, and prediction-market fees — with the sample size required before a winning season is evidence.

Identity + measured + modeled Evidence reviewed: August 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
American-odds identities, parlay compounding, posted taker-fee schedules, and a power calculation for claimed edge

What you can explore
Change the ticket, the number of legs, true skill, venue fees, and a prepaid entertainment budget.

Boundary
Independence and extra-margin stand-ins are not a book’s correlation model; household studies are population-level; this is not a betting system.
08

Purpose & behavior

What Money Is For

Once the arithmetic is sound, what is the money for?

Fourteen public-domain texts set in tension over provision, labor, power, accumulation, finitude, and use.

Primary texts + source criticism Evidence reviewed: August 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Paired close reading, primary-edition and rights verification, historical context, and original commentary

What you can explore
Read seven paired movements, inspect visible source dossiers and facsimiles, and write a private stopping rule.

Boundary
A curated moral, literary, and political argument, not a universal creed or individualized advice.
09

Costs & risk / Household decisions

The Bearer Asset: Bitcoin, Crypto, and the Price of Control

What can a non-sovereign asset be worth when it pays no cash flow?

A field guide to Bitcoin value, sleeve sizing, custody, wrappers, stablecoins, programmable networks, privacy, and failure modes.

Decision framework + protocol facts + scenarios Evidence reviewed: August 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Monetary-theory review, source-led protocol comparison, ownership threat model, and deterministic scenario labs

What you can explore
Stress a sleeve, test monetary-premium assumptions, compare custody routes, and trace stablecoin risk.

Boundary
No cash-flow valuation, expected-return forecast, universal allocation, product recommendation, or guarantee of protocol or custody safety.
10

Costs & risk / Household decisions

The SWAN Number

How much liquidity buys resilience without giving up too much compounding?

Cash reserves, household runway, and the changing cost of a fixed safety buffer as wealth grows.

Household research + modeled Evidence reviewed: September 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Buffer-stock research, household liquidity constraints, and matched cash-flow scenarios

What you can explore
Change essential spending, income interruptions, reserves, wealth, and the timing of saving versus investing.

Boundary
A personal resilience constraint, not a universal cash target or a forecast of market returns or emergencies.
11

Costs & risk / Household decisions / Purpose & behavior

The Price of Advice

When can behavioral help and planning justify the price of an adviser?

The value of avoiding costly decisions compared with the compounding cost of ongoing advice.

Empirical research + counterfactual scenarios Evidence reviewed: September 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
Research on investor behavior, delegation, and incentives with matched net-of-fee counterfactuals

What you can explore
Change fees, market-exit decisions, re-entry timing, and whether advice prevents a mistake.

Boundary
Avoided mistakes are scenario assumptions, not guaranteed adviser alpha; observational return gaps do not establish causality.
12

Income & taxes / Household decisions

Before 59½

How can retirement accounts support an early retirement before age 59½?

Early-access rules, Roth conversion ladders, SEPP commitments, and the role of a taxable bridge.

Primary tax rules + modeled Evidence reviewed: September 2026

Method, interaction, and boundary

Method
IRS-source rule distinctions, tax-year cash-flow ledgers, and equal-cash-cost account comparisons

What you can explore
Explore access routes, conversion seasoning, bridge needs, SEPP constraints, and tax-wrapper tradeoffs.

Boundary
U.S. educational examples, not individualized tax advice; plan distribution rules, income tax, and additional-tax exceptions are separate.

Want a shorter way in?

Investment foundations Income versus return Household decisions

Independent educational research, not individualized investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Models are conditional illustrations, not forecasts.