Cross-ownership as a hostage exchange to support collaboration

The impossibility of writing complete contracts causes loss of profitable transactions among firms, since their managers cannot ex ante bind themselves to future actions. The author shows how a reallocation of ownership rights into a network of mutual shareholdings among a coalition of firms produces an efficient enforcement mechanism. Cooperation is achieved by exchanging control rights until a mutual threat of capture of control is established. By making control over their firms vulnerable to a takeover by the other members of the coalition, each firm is able to make a credible commitment to future efficient actions. In equilibrium no punishment is administered, so that the arrangement achieves the outcome under complete contracts. More generally, it is proved that a mutual hostage exchange may dominate the threat of loss of reputation as an enforcement mechanism.