Speaking at the SMU School of Economics seminar series on the impact of financial literacy on mortgage decisions and outcomes, Stephan Meier, an associate professor of management at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business said many people have difficulties answering simple questions concerning basic financial principles. They also make systematic financial mistakes based on previous research that had claimed that the rise in mortgage defaults was due to borrowers' limited ability to make complicated financial decisions. This article was first published in Knowledge@SMU, an online research portal of SMU.