We conduct three lab experiments and use field data from the Dutch Math Olympiad to study how the gender gap in willingness to compete evolves in response to experience. The main result is that women are more likely than men to stop competing if they lose. In the Dutch Math Olympiad, this means that girls who do not make the top 1000, and therefore do not advance to the next round, are less likely to compete again one year later while there is no effect on boys. In an additional experiment, we show that men are more likely than women to start and keep competing after receiving positive feedback. In a third experiment, we show that the gender difference in the reaction to losing is not present when winning and losing are random rather than the outcome of competition. The fact that women are more likely to give up competing after a setback may help to explain why fewer women make it to the top in business and academia. JEL: C91, D03, J01, J16

中文翻译：

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女性更容易放弃竞争吗？来自实验室和荷兰数学奥林匹克竞赛的证据

我们进行了三个实验室实验，并使用来自荷兰数学奥林匹克竞赛的现场数据来研究竞争意愿的性别差距如何随着经验而演变。主要结果是，如果输了，女性比男性更有可能停止竞争。在荷兰数学奥林匹克竞赛中，这意味着没有进入前1000名的女孩，因此没有晋级下一轮，一年后再次参加比赛的可能性较小，而对男孩没有影响。在另一个实验中，我们表明男性比女性更有可能在收到积极反馈后开始并继续竞争。在第三个实验中，我们表明当输赢是随机的而不是竞争的结果时，对输的反应的性别差异不存在。女性在遭遇挫折后更有可能放弃竞争这一事实可能有助于解释为什么很少有女性能够进入商界和学术界。JEL：C91、D03、J01、J16