Do Conventional Determinants Explain Dividend Payout on the Qatar Stock Exchange? Firm-Level and Macroeconomic Correlates, 2008–2024

This study tests whether conventional firm-level and macroeconomic determinants explain dividend payout on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE), a concentrated, state-influenced and hydrocarbon-dependent market. Using 245 firm-years for 28 listed firms (2008–2024) from Refinitiv and Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), we estimate pooled, random-effects and fixed-effects models with clustered and wild cluster bootstrap inference that recognises the 17 annual observations behind macroeconomic effects, complemented by robust, quantile, Tobit, fractional and two-part models, a dividends-to-equity measure and Lintner-type dynamics. Profitability, size, liquidity (non-financial firms), sector, four crisis episodes, oil prices and US interest rates explain little of the variation in payout ratios (adjusted R2 below 6%). The strongly negative raw correlation between profitability and the payout ratio largely reflects five extreme firm-years; thereafter, the association is zero to mildly negative, and evidence that profitable firms are more likely to pay is only suggestive. Payout ratios are persistent (ρ = 0.32) and firm-specific, while dividend levels adjust fairly quickly to current earnings, a pattern more consistent with firm-specific target payout ratios than with slow Lintner-type smoothing. Macroeconomic effects are imprecisely estimated, and ownership-based explanations remain untested.