Determinants of Firms’ Sustainable Development Goals Performance: Evidence From Qatar and Global Firms

In this paper, we analyse the Sustainable Development Goals performance of a global sample of 4,643 firms (34,177 firm year observations) across 43 countries. Our empirical investigation indicates that firm size, visibility, stability and profitability are contributing factors to superior performance towards the SDGs.  We document a negative relationship between institutional ownership and SDG performance, which is also persistent across most of the individual SDG Goals (apart from SDG#16).  We find the effect of institutional ownership becomes more pronounced in countries with high investor and legal protection. With regards to the type of the ultimate shareholder, we document that a positive (negative) relationship with SDG performance when the ultimate shareholder is the government (private). Another important aspect of our analysis is the significantly positive relationship between SDG performance and country governance indicators (i.e., rule of law, regulatory quality, and voice and accountability). Finally, we document an interesting change in the deteminants of SDG performance after 2016 (the year the SDGs come into effect).