Kevin L. Michel · Independent research
Research on people, policy and the systems that shape our lives. Follow the findings, inspect the evidence, and explore the questions still open.
Every research paper is free to read and download.
A state can keep functioning while protection fails.
Can institutions keep operating?
Can the law constrain power?
Do people receive protection?
Israel through April 2028. Three questions assessed separately, with evidence available through 7 October 2026.
A finding is a place to begin
Two studies. Two reasons to look beyond the headline.
01 / Saint Lucia · Tourism
Visitor counts, paid nights and industry production tell different stories about the same recovery.
2025 preliminary; nights rounded. Industry value added does not measure total tourism value added or income reaching residents.
Canonical paper, Appendix A1–A2; Economic and Social Review 2025, Tables 2 and 5. Changes use a common publication vintage.
02 / United States · Housing
Switch from an area-wide to a ZIP-level rent estimate, and a household’s budget screen can reverse.
159 of 259 ZIP-area records
Area fails → local estimate passes
31 of 153 ZIP-area records
Area passes → local estimate fails
Shares use each market’s own denominator. HUD policy benchmarks, not advertised homes or a measure of overall affordability.
FY2027 HUD benchmarks from the paper’s replication data. Both examples use a $2,500 monthly limit. The bars run from 0% to 100% of records in each official HUD area.
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH HUD Metro FMR Area; Seattle-Bellevue, WA HUD Metro FMR Area.
Read the paper and replication detailsQuantum foundations · A visual guide
When different theories predict the same experiment, what have we actually learned?
The research collection
Explore the full collection, from freely available papers to interactive reports. Access is marked on every publication.
Policy systems
A state can keep functioning while legal safeguards and civilian protection deteriorate. A public-source assessment of Israel through April 2028, with reproducible analysis and explicit forecast review rules.
Saint Lucia evidence
Saint Lucia’s arrival counts, paid nights and real industry production show different recoveries. An audited record and measurement protocol explain what can be learned about income reaching residents.
Research methods
Across eight U.S. HUD markets, choosing a metropolitan or ZIP-level rent estimate can change whether the same hypothetical household passes a rental-budget screen.
Quantum foundations
What can quantum experiments tell us about many worlds? A framework for separating evidence for shared quantum laws from evidence that every branch is real.
Saint Lucia evidence
An 11-year plan-to-outturn assessment separating current revenue, grants, operating spending, and capital execution in Saint Lucia’s budgetary central government.
Saint Lucia evidence
A household-level census analysis separating co-deprivation, local incidence, national caseload, and 2010–2022 change across Saint Lucia’s 12 census districts.
Saint Lucia evidence
A fixed-date census audit of 840 records on Saint Lucia’s Department of Finance tender portal, measuring availability, completeness, linkage, and observable competition.
Policy systems
A decision-relative framework for judging what must be understood before an institution is preserved, redesigned, replaced, or removed.
Saint Lucia evidence
A reproducible sector-level account of how Saint Lucia’s output recovery translated into jobs—and how unevenly those gains reached workers.
Policy systems
A mechanism-based framework for tracing direct incidence, participant adaptation, system propagation, and inherited state change in small open states.
Policy systems
A Lewisian architecture for decisive public action under systemic complexity, built around robust progress, viability boundaries, staged commitment, and future options.
Saint Lucia evidence
A decomposition of Saint Lucia’s 2019–2025 consumer-price increase that distinguishes falling inflation from the high price level left behind.
Psychology and human development
A model of when aspirational self-presentation remains display, changes accessible self-views, organizes conduct, or contributes to personality change.
Psychology and human development
A dynamic model of when perceived control is calibrated, when a response fits available routes, and when persistence should give way to adaptive redirection.
Psychology and human development
A person × visual-environment framework explaining how visual properties, learner differences, task demands, and adaptation jointly shape sustained academic attention.
Psychology and human development
A recipient-centered model of how prosocial dispositions translate—or fail to translate—through exposure, recognition, responsibility, action, and benefit.
Research integrity
A person × situation theory of prospective answerability at moments when researchers exercise consequential discretion.
Research methods
A 10-stage framework for turning customer-interview transcripts into contextualized findings, opportunity hypotheses, and defensible next steps without erasing individual differences.
Caribbean Futures
A transparent model estimating direct and multiplier-adjusted domestic value added per EC$1 of visitor spending, by segment and spending category.
Caribbean Futures
A focused comparison of visitor yield, leakage, employment, dwell time, and policy tradeoffs.
Caribbean Futures
A Saint Lucia water-security report on rainfall dependence, aging infrastructure, drought, household storage, hotel demand, watershed protection, tariffs, public trust, and climate-resilient investment.
Caribbean Futures
A research report on imported fuel exposure, electricity bills, grid resilience, solar, storage, geothermal possibilities, hotel competitiveness, and local energy ownership.
Caribbean Futures
A Saint Lucia labor-market report on youth unemployment, school-to-work pipelines, tourism careers, trades, certifications, digital work, entrepreneurship, migration pressure, and the difference between having qualifications and having a real income ladder.
AI & Work
A practical research report on productivity capture, labor bargaining power, and the new AI-enabled middle class.
Psychology & Human Performance
A psychology and performance brief on attention fragmentation, AI acceleration, and practical discipline.
Caribbean Futures
A Caribbean-wide research report on all-inclusive resorts, tourism leakage, local supplier linkages, worker income, ownership structure, and the public value of tourism incentives.
Law, Power & Public Records
A public-facing legal and civic research brief on beach access, land, tourism development, coastal rights, and the unresolved Queen's Chain question.
Creator Economy & Publishing
A research-backed guide to reader trust, AI assistance, authorship, disclosure, publishing, and the commercial value of authentic human voice.
Frontier Physics & Space Futures
A theoretical physics research report reframing faster-than-light travel as a constrained problem in causal geometry, topology, stress-energy, quantum limits, and buildable initial conditions.
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