Capital Investment in a Recovering Economy

• By more than 2-to-1, participants in our research plan to invest less in capital equipment over the next three years than they did over the last three years. Uncertainty about the economy and our industry is part of the reason. But this is about more than waiting for the clouds to lift. It’s about a tough new mindset—born of an extraordinary recession—that will invest “only when sound measures of expected return justify investment, not because our competitors are investing, we’re getting a deal, or it’s new, hot, and going to make all the difference.”