In many cases, a company’s capital investment decision is not a one-off “yes/no”, but occurs as a result of a sequence of decisions of a more preliminary nature. Major resource investment projects, for example, typically have to pass several “feasibility” tests before companies fully...

The Millennium Boom of 2003–2011 made the resources industry hugely profitable and led to a surge in new projects around the world. This had major implications for the Australian economy: resource investment accounted for almost half of all business investment at the peak, the capitalisation...