The cost of commuting drops dramatically when you’re only walking a few feet from the bedroom to the home office. Such savings in time and money have prompted many people to take their work-from-home flexibility and relocate to cheaper, more spacious homes farther away from the city centers where their jobs may have been based in the past. This pandemic-induced movement has, in turn, disrupted housing markets across the country, with prices rising in some cities and falling in others.

Jan Brueckner, a distinguished professor of economics at UCI, recently conducted an economic analysis of the effects of work from home policies on housing markets. In this episode of the UCI Podcast, Brueckner discusses the forces that traditionally shape housing markets, why work from home has been so disruptive, and why these corporate policies might lead to more suburban sprawl.

The economics of why work from home favors the suburbs

UCI Law professor David Kaye discusses Musk's controversial buyout of the social media giant and the human rights issues related to online speech.

Elon Musk, Twitter and free speech

With the inflation up and the GNP and stock prices down, UCI economist Eric Swanson explains that there’s nothing yet to fear … at least for now.

Is a recession coming?

Brett Sanders, UC Irvine professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been focusing his research efforts on understanding flood risk in Southern California, with a significant emphasis on the impact of climate change-caused sea level rise on coastal communities. Lately he has been examining flood risk to populations living further inland, in many cases affecting people of lower socioeconomic status. In this episode of the UCI Podcast, Professor Sanders talks about his research and its relevance in this season of substantial rain and snowfall in the U.S. West.

UCI Podcast: Evaluating Flood Risk in California

In March, the UCI Medical Center became the first hospital in Orange County to provide COVID-19 testing. Dr. Ed Monuki, chair of pathology who leads UCI Health’s testing efforts, discusses how the campus came together to address this community need and how future testing for the coronavirus and its antibodies will play an important role with the resumption of our regular daily activities, like going back to work or the classroom.

UCI Podcast: The race for COVID testing

UCI is reengaging operations and more people are getting ready to come back to campus, with university leaders generating plans and implementing measures to ensure a smooth, safe transition. Bernadette Boden-Albala, the director and founding dean of UCI’s Program in Public Health, talks with the Anteater Insider about those plans, where Orange County stands on COVID-19, and why it’s safe to return to campus.

Anteater Insider: Prof. Bernadette Boden-Albala on coming back to campus

When Russ Dalton's mother Sandy passed away in 2018, his sister Janet found a trove of letters their father Bob, a soldier in Patton's Third Army, had sent during his deployment to Germany. Earlier this year, Russ and Janet published a book, "Love Letters from World War II: Robert W. Dalton's WW II Service" that is an assembly of some of their dad's letters and photos. It offers a first-person account of an average GI's war experience and an intimate glimpse into the lives of two members of the Greatest Generation. Russ, a UCI political science research professor, tells the UCI podcast how that war affected family relations and touched all of their lives.

UCI Podcast: Commemorating the 75th anniversary of WW II

The COVID-19 crisis has intertwined economics and public health into a single issue, creating a collective action problem. Eric Spangenberg, dean of The UCI Paul Merage School of Business and consumer behavior expert, joins the UCI Podcast to share his insights into the relationship between community action and keeping Orange County safely and successfully open for business during the pandemic.

UCI Podcast: Coronavirus crisis and economic recovery

Good Trouble

The clouds of misinformation swirling on the internet have only thickened this election season, with unfounded allegations of rampant voter fraud and online conspiracy theories that severely strain credulity. To learn more, the UCI Podcast spoke with Cailin O’Connor, an associate professor in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UCI, is an expert on misinformation, and, along with fellow UCI professor James Weatherall, the co-author of the book, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread (2019). In this interview, O’Connor discusses the most consequential pieces of misinformation this election season and the ways people can slow their spread.

UCI Podcast: Slowing the spread of election misinformation

With a student resident population of 7,000 for Fall Quarter, UCI embarked on an ambitious combined effort to help slow the spread of coronavirus on campus: weekly asymptomatic testing for resident students, and a contact tracing program unique to the UCI community. Dr. Albert Chang, the Medical Director of the UCI Student Health Center; and David Souleles, the Director of UCI’s COVID-19 Response Team, together join the UCI Podcast to discuss these two programs and how the two initiatives work together to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

UCI Podcast: COVID-19 Testing and Tracing

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

The economics of why work from home favors the suburbs

University of California, Irvine

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