We present a new model for cost sharing in minimum cost spanning tree problems, so that the planner can identify the agents that merge. Under this new framework, and as opposed to the traditional model, there exist rules that satisfy merge-proofness. Besides, by strengthening this property and...

In the context of cost sharing in minimum cost spanning tree problems, we introduce a property called No Advantageous Merging. This property implies that no group of agents can be better off claiming to be a single node. We show that the sharing rule that assigns to each agent his own connection...