Previous studies have documented a gender gap in the study of economics in Canada, the UK, and the US. One important factor may be women's low expectations about their ability to succeed in economics courses. Women in our sample expect to do less well than men in an introductory microeconomics...

We use meta-regression analysis to investigate the extent and nature of the gender gap - that male students outperform otherwise equivalent female students in economics courses. We survey 65 studies containing 279 distinct regressions from the past 30 years and conclude that the gender gap is...