Most of our insights about capital structure choice come from static models that consider tradeoffs between the costs and benefits of debt and equity financing. However, tests of these static models have been somewhat inconclusive since observed debt ratios are likely to deviate from the optimums suggested by these static models. In particular, there is evidence that suggests that firms tend to accumulate past profits and losses in a manner that is consistent with the pecking order behavior described by Donaldson (1961).