Characterization of the Average Tree solution and its kernel

In this article, we study cooperative games with limited cooperation possibilities, represented by a tree on the set of agents. Agents in the game can cooperate if they are connected in the tree. We first derive direct-sum decompositions of the space of TU-games on a fixed tree, and two new basis for these spaces of TU-games. We then focus our attention on the Average (rooted)-Tree solution (see Herings et al. (2008)). We provide a basis for its kernel and a new axiomatic characterization by using the classical axiom for inessential games, and two new axioms of invariance called Invariance with respect to irrelevant coalitions and Weighted addition invariance on bi-partitions. We also solve the inverse problem for the Average (rooted)-Tree solution. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.