Research

Three active programs in behavioral finance, applied FinTech, and under-resourced-consumer-finance research.

The Institute of FAME funds work in three programs. Each sits at the intersection of academic rigor and applied relevance — research questions that matter to the regulators, educators, and advocates working on consumer-protection outcomes.

See published papers (2 FAME-funded)

Program · MTI

Maturity Type Indicator (MTI)

Flagship measurement program

Lead investigator: Dr. Patrick Bernard Washington (Chair, Institute of FAME)

A psychometric instrument built to measure habitual money tendencies in everyday financial decision-making.

MTI is designed to measure stable individual differences in how people approach everyday money decisions — saving versus spending under uncertainty, reaction to financial losses, and willingness to delay gratification for compound returns. MTI scores are designed to inform personal-finance education, financial-services product design, and consumer-protection research that depends on understanding *how* — not just whether — individuals respond to financial choices.

Program detail →

Program · FinTech Sandbox

FinTech Adoption & Regulatory Sandboxes

Two peer-reviewed papers in print

Lead investigator: Dr. Shafiq Ur Rehman (lead) · Dr. Patrick B. Washington (co-PI)

How regulatory sandboxes shape banking competition, and how FinTech adoption reaches small and mid-sized enterprises in emerging markets.

Two FAME-funded studies anchor this line of work. Washington, Rehman & Lee (2022, Journal of Risk and Financial Management) examines the relationship between regulatory sandboxes and the performance of digital banks in the United Kingdom. Rehman et al. (2023, Economies) extends the FinTech-adoption framework to manufacturing SMEs. Both papers register the Institute of FAME as funder in Crossref metadata.

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Program · Applied BF

Applied Behavioral Finance

Active methodology development

Lead investigator: Dr. Patrick Bernard Washington

Behavioral-finance methods applied to professional sports labor-market contracts, designed to be validated longitudinally against realized career outcomes.

This program develops and validates the Contract Value Index (CVI), a behavioral-finance grading framework for professional sports contracts. CVI brings empirically calibrated weights, longitudinal outcome validation, and bias-correction techniques to a domain where decision-making under uncertainty has high-stakes financial consequences. The work serves as a public-facing demonstration of the institute's methodological standards for behavioral evaluation under uncertainty.

Program detail →

MTI · Six archetypes

The instrument's six behavioral archetypes

Each archetype is anchored to the financial behavior of a specific bond instrument. The framework treats money tendencies as stable individual differences rather than as moralized categories.

Treasury

Anchor

Prioritizes principal preservation under uncertainty. Reacts strongly to potential loss and accepts lower expected returns in exchange for known outcomes.

Corporate

Navigator

Balances risk and return through deliberate diversification. Comfortable with measured volatility when the underlying credit narrative is sound.

High-Yield

Maverick

Embraces volatility for upside. Tolerates substantial drawdowns in pursuit of compensated risk where the long-run expected return justifies the path.

Zero-Coupon

Architect

Long-horizon delayed gratification. Comfortable with no interim cash flow when the terminal payoff is meaningful and the discipline is intentional.

Municipal

Guardian

Stability paired with social purpose. Combines lower expected return with mission alignment, weighting how principal is deployed alongside what it earns.

Convertible

Alchemist

Adaptive across regimes. Switches between defensive and growth-oriented postures depending on context, exercising optionality as conditions change.

The archetypes, the bond-instrument anchors, and the underlying measurement framework are intellectual property of the Institute of FAME, Inc. The MTI instrument is developed under FAME's research program; the institute intends the completed instrument to be available to the field on equivalent terms — to qualified academic, educational, and consumer-research users — rather than locked to any single licensee.

What FAME does not do

Investment advice. The institute does not provide investment recommendations, portfolio guidance, or financial planning to individuals.
Direct financial services. FAME does not lend, custody assets, or operate as a registered investment adviser.
Lobbying or political activity. Per 501(c)(3) public-charity rules, the institute does not engage in lobbying or political campaigning.

The institute's work is research and the dissemination of that research. Implementation of any findings is the responsibility of policymakers, financial-services firms, and individual consumers.