Using a novel data set that records individual debt issues on the balance sheet of a large random sample of rated public firms, we show that a recognition of debt heterogeneity leads to new insights into the determinants of corporate capital structure. We first demonstrate that traditional...

Better measurement of the output produced and capital employed by firms substantially improves the ability to explain capital structure variation in the cross-section. For every firm, we construct the set of other firms producing the same output using the set of product market competitors listed...