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Thomas Geelen

Institution

Pennsylvania State University

PhD Year

2018

geelen@psu.edu

FTG Membership

Member

Website

https://www.thomasgeelen.com/

Featured Work

Apr 7, 2026

Brendan Daley, Thomas Geelen, Brett Green | Working Paper No. 00211-00

Due Diligence

Due diligence is common practice prior to the execution of large transactions. We propose a model of due diligence and analyze its effect on prices, payoffs, and deal completion. In our model, if the seller accepts an offer, the acquirer has the right to gather information and chooses when to execute the transaction. In equilibrium, the acquirer engages in “too much” due diligence. Our quantitative...

Jul 1, 2025

Thomas Geelen, Jakub Hajda

Succession

Managing CEO succession is one of the board’s most important tasks. We develop a dynamic model of CEO succession to analyze executive hiring, firing, and entrenchment. The board learns about the CEO’s and successor’s ability and can decide to replace the executives internally or externally. Our model explains the board’s preference towards internal CEO successions, which become more likely with more efficient executive labor markets....