Average tree solutions and the distribution of Harsanyi dividends

We consider communication situations games being the combination of a TU-game and a communication graph. We study the average tree (AT) solutions introduced by Herings et al. [9] and [10]. The AT solutions are defined with respect to a set, say T , of rooted spanning trees of the communication graph. We characterize these solutions by efficiency, linearity and an axiom of T -hierarchy. Then we prove the following results. Firstly, the AT solution with respect to T is a Harsanyi solution if and only if T is a subset of the set of trees introduced in [10]. Secondly, the latter set is constructed by the classical DFS algorithm and the associated AT solution coincides with the Shapley value when the communication graph is complete. Thirdly, the AT solution with respect to trees constructed by the other classical algorithm BFS yields the equal surplus division when the communication graph is complete.