This article evaluates the effects of including the costs of bankruptcy in a dynamic model of off-farm investment decisions using a stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) model which incorporates the stochastic dynamic nature of investment returns and the interrelationships between financial structure and investment decisions. Our results suggest that in the presence of bankruptcy, optimal investment decisions are affected by financial structure and financial market conditions. Ignoring bankruptcy costs in determining investment decisions results in a high probability of bankruptcy.