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Bocar A Ba

Assistant Professor of Economics
Economics

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Assistant Professor of Economics · 2021 - Present Economics, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

In the News


Published September 17, 2021
Five New Faculty Join Department of Economics

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Recent Publications


Alternatives to 911

Journal Article SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026 Almost a quarter-billion calls are placed to 911 each year in the United States. A large share of them involve social problems, not crimes or emergencies---yet police are dispatched in response. This review traces how the 911 emergency system&a ... Full text Cite

OFFICER-INVOLVED: THE MEDIA LANGUAGE OF POLICE KILLINGS

Journal Article Quarterly Journal of Economics · May 1, 2025 This article examines language patterns in U.S. television news coverage of police killings. First, we document that the media use syntactic structures—such as passive voice, nominalizations, and intransitive verbs—that obscure responsibility more often in ... Full text Cite

Political diversity in U.S. police agencies.

Journal Article American journal of political science · February 2025 Partisans are divided on policing policy, which may affect officer behavior. We merge rosters from 99 of the 100 largest local U.S. agencies-over one third of local law enforcement agents nationwide-with voter files to study police partisanship. Police ske ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


The Effect of Police Alternatives on Public Safety Outcomes in Durham, NC

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Arnold Ventures · 2025 - 2027

Social Movements and Corporate Opportunities

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2023 - 2026

AV Fellowship Postdoc - Shinjini Pandey

FellowshipPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Social Science Research Council · 2025 - 2026

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Education


The University of Chicago · 2018 Ph.D.