Code and data for: From reference-class cost priors to investment choices, a back-tested screening workflow for copper and lithium projects (review version)

Code and data accompanying the manuscript “From reference-class cost priors to investment choices: a back-tested screening workflow for copper and lithium projects”, under review at Mineral Economics. This deposit is anonymised for double-blind review; author, affiliation and citation metadata are added on publication. The workflow screens a greenfield mining investment (enter, fund a feasibility study, or walk) from information public at the decision date: a reference-class capital-overrun prior blended with the project’s own estimate, a scenario-driven Monte Carlo valuation, a tail-weighted decision statistic (RAV) with a staged option, and a country-risk module. It is back-tested under leakage control on eleven Chilean copper projects sanctioned 2008 to 2019 and nine lithium mines and conversion plants sanctioned 2009 to 2019, and audited against five documented trading-house decisions. Deposited under embargo for peer review at Mineral Economics; made public on publication.