Xiao Ma is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Peking University, and a faculty associate at Peking University Research Center for Contemporary China. His primary research and teaching interests lie in comparative political institutions, political economy of development, and Chinese politics. Professor Ma’s research addresses the questions of power-sharing among political elites both with and without the constraints of formal political institutions and how elite interactions, in turn, shape policy outcomes. His first book, Localized Bargaining (Oxford University Press, 2022), examines how intergovernmental bargaining, particularly those by local governments, shape China’s high-speed railway program, one of the largest infrastructure projects in human history. His work has appeared in outlets such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Communication, Security Studies, Studies in Comparative and International Development, World Development, and China Quarterly.