Scheve earned a degree in economics at the University of Notre Dame in 1990, then worked in the finance sector.
[1] He completed a doctorate in political science at Harvard University in 2000,[2][1] where his doctoral thesis, Casting Votes in the Global Economy: Public Opinion and Voting Behavior in Open Economies, was advised by James E. Alt, Torben Iversen, and Gary King.
[1] Scheve returned to Yale as full professor of political science in 2006,[1] then left to teach at Stanford University in 2012.
[2][1] He later rejoined the Yale faculty as Dean Acheson Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs.
[4] In 2020, Scheve was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.