Shum received his B.A. from
Columbia University in 1992. He received his Ph.D. in economics from
Stanford University in 1998, working on his thesis under the supervision of
Frank A. Wolak. He worked at the
Union Bank of Switzerland as an analyst from 1992 to 1993. Shum became an assistant professor at the
University of Toronto from 1998 to 2000 before moving to the faculty of
Johns Hopkins University, where he taught until 2008. He became a professor at
Caltech in 2008 and served as the J. Stanley Johnson Professor of Economics from 2016 to 2022. Since 2021, Shum has also been a member of the economics team on the
Amazon Scholars program. Shum's research lies at the intersection between
econometrics and the study of
industrial organizations that involves applying statistical modeling to consumer and firm-level datasets, studying equilibrium models of rational decision making. Aside from his work conducting research in the field of economics, Shum also has a history of performing editorial duties. He worked as an associate editor for the
International Economic Review from 2010 to 2020 and a department editor for
Management Science from 2014 to 2021. == Awards and recognition ==