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This paper empirically studies the voting outcomes of Egypt's first parliamentary elections after the Arab Spring. In light of the strong Islamist success in the polls, we explore the main determinants of Islamist vs. secular voting. We identify three dimensions that affect voting outcomes at the constituency level: the socio-economic profile, the economic structure and the electoral institutional framework. Our results show that education is negatively associated with Islamist voting. Interestingly, we find significant evidence which suggests that higher poverty levels are associated with a lower vote share for Islamist parties. Later voting stages in the sequential voting setup do not exhibit a bandwagon effect.

This paper develops a competition theory framework that evaluates an important aspect of the OECD's Harmful Tax Practices Initiative against tax havens. We show that the sequential nature of the process is harmful and more costly than a 'big bang' multilateral agreement. The sequentiality may even prevent the process from being completed successfully. Closing down a subset of tax havens reduces competition among the havens that remain active. This makes their 'tax haven business' more profitable and shifts a larger share of rents to these remaining tax havens, making them more reluctant to give up their 'tax haven business'. Moreover, the outcome of this process, reducing the number of tax havens, but not eliminating them altogether, may reduce welfare in the OECD.