Study on factors influencing the level of capital expenditure spent in mining / Badanie Czynników Wpływających Na Wysokość Nakładów Inwestycyjnych Wydatkowanych W Górnictwie

This article presents the results of studies assesing the significance of the most important macro- and microeconomic factors affecting investors’ propensity to invest in mining. The Polish mining industry in recent years has seen intensive restructuring processes which have considerably affected the status of fixed assets required for the exploitation of useful minerals. In order to efectively manage technological progress in mining plants, it is necessary to understand the role of individual, variable factors influencing investors’ propensity to make specific expenditures. In the analysis, mathematical statistics and econometric modelling methods were applied to determine the nature of correlations between the values studied and their significance. This examination applied statistical data accumulated by economic entities from 2000-2010. A linear econometric model was presented illustrating the relationship between capital expenditure in mining and such indicators as fixed assets value, GDP, real interest rate, consumption levels of fixed asset components in mining, and various other factors. Structural parameters of a function specifying the level of investment expenditure can be determined based on statistical data which has been appropriately processed so that the model constructed reflects the economic process studied in relevant way. Such a model is not free of defects typical in statistical models; however, it simultaneously enables one to obtain valuable information concerning the impact of the factors studied on the value of such expenditure, and the theoretical possibilities to exchange the specific quantity of one factor for another factor. In the final version of the model, it is often sufficient to include only these independent variables which contribute the most essential information to the independent variable. This often simplifies the final form of the model without simultaneous limiting of its importance in explaining the economic phenomenon studied and the possibilities of its practical application. In the final selection of significant variables captured in the model, the method of information capacity indicators was used.