Debin Ma is a Professor of Economic History at the Faculty of History and University Academic Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. His main expertise is on the long-term economic growth of East Asia, especially China. His research interests include global history; the international comparison of living standards; institutions, legal traditions, and ideology; human capital and productivity; and the economic history of the silk industry. He has published widely on Asian and comparative economic history and am the co-editor of the Cambridge Economic History of China.