蘇基朗，香港科技大學人文學部講座教授及學部主任。曆任香港中文大學曆史係講座教授、教務長及協理副校長。研究範圍包括中國法律文化史、中國製度經濟史、中國曆史地理、唐宋史等。主要著作有Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946-1368 (2000; 中譯《刺桐夢華錄：近世前期閩南市場經濟史》即將齣版)、Treaty-port Economy in Modern China: Empirical Studies of Institutional Change and Economic Performance (co-edited with Ramon H. Myers; 2011)等。

馬若孟，美國西雅圖華盛頓大學經濟學博士，斯坦福大學鬍佛研究院榮譽資深研究員(Senior Fellow Emeritus)。

Through eight empirical studies, this volume explores the interplay between institutional change and economic performance in a constructed model of the treaty port economy in late-Qing and Republican China.

"Where previous generations of researchers sought to account for China's failures, we now face the novel problem of explaining massive success. This volume offers a timely reappraisal of circumstances in China's treaty ports, one of many legacies underpinning today's economic boom. The emphasis on institutions, a topic that recent studies tend to sidestep, adds to the value of the lively empirical studies in this new book."

–Thomas G. Rawski, University of Pittsburgh

"These studies of institutional changes in China's treaty port economies introduce the challenges and potential payoffs of understanding how institutions aff ect economic performance. With rich and diverse empirical material, they provide perspective on more recent Chinese economic reforms and the ways in which economic growth need neither intend nor result in prosperity for all."

–R. Bin Wong, University of California, Los Angeles