Add to ORKGA current outgrowth of the nearly four decades of research in capital structure is the investigation of linkages between the firm's decisions and factors outside of strictly financial determinants. The three essays that comprise this dissertation offer contributions to this area of research. The first essay explores the connection between the product market and the firm's financial decisions. I hypothesize that market power acts as a buffer against strategic action on the part of a competitor and the existence of market power allows the firm to hold more debt in its capital structure. Using a binary choice model, I find that firms with market power have a higher propensity to issue public debt rather than public equity. In addition, no evid...