Natural resource curse exists in Mongolia? Focusing on budget transparency in local governments

Mongolia, a resource-rich country with a high level of corruption, is on the gray list of the Financial Action Task Force. However, the effects of natural resources on budget transparency in Mongolia have not been empirically studied. Therefore, this study applied the natural resource curse theory to examine the effects of natural resource abundance on budget transparency. We used the local government data from 2011 to 2016 to determine whether such a curse exists in Mongolia. Our findings confirmed the natural resource curse theory, showing that the mining sector's higher GDP is negatively related to budget transparency. However, as education increased, the effects of GDP from the mining sector on budget transparency showed a positive relation.