What is the advantage of setting DataContext in code instead of XAML?

There seem to be two main ways to define DataContext in WPF:

• either in code like this:

App.xaml.cs (taken from the WPF MVVM Toolkit template):

public partial class App : Application
{
    private void OnStartup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)
    {
        // Create the ViewModel and expose it using the View's DataContext
        MainView mainView = new MainView();
        MainViewModel mainViewModel = new MainViewModel();
        mainViewModel.LoadCustomers("c:\\testdata2\\Customers.xml");
        mainView.DataContext = mainViewModel;
        mainView.Show();
    }
}

• or in XAML like this:

Window1.xaml:

<DockPanel>
    <StackPanel
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        DockPanel.Dock="Top"
        Orientation="Horizontal">
        <StackPanel.DataContext>
            <local:CustomerViewModel />
        </StackPanel.DataContext>
        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=FirstName}" />
        <TextBlock Text=" " />
        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=LastName}" />
    </StackPanel>

    <StackPanel
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        VerticalAlignment="top"
        DockPanel.Dock="Top"
        Orientation="Horizontal">
        <ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource FileNames}}" />
    </StackPanel>

    <StackPanel
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        VerticalAlignment="top"
        DockPanel.Dock="Top"
        Orientation="Horizontal">
        <ComboBox
            ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource Directories}}"
            SelectedIndex="0" />
    </StackPanel>

    <StackPanel
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        VerticalAlignment="top"
        DockPanel.Dock="Top"
        Orientation