The literature shows that males react more favorably than females to competitive incentives. This well-known result, however, is based on experiments in which participants engage in only a one-shot contest. We conduct a series of math contests in elementary schools which are similar to past...

Past research nds that males outperform females in competitive situations. Using data from multiple-round math tournaments, we verify this nding during the initial round of competition. The performance gap between males and females, however, disappears after the rst round. In later rounds, only...