Folk solution for simple minimum cost spanning tree problems

Abstract

A minimum cost spanning tree problem analyzes how to efficiently connect a group of individuals to a source. Once the efficient tree is obtained, the addressed question is how to allocate the total cost among the involved agents. One prominent solution in allocating this minimum cost is the so-called Folk solution. Unfortunately, in general, the Folk solution is not easy to compute. We identify a class of mcst problems in which the Folk solution is obtained in an easy way. Keywords: Minimum cost spanning tree problem; Folk solution; Elementary cost matrix; Simple mcst problem; JEL classification: C71, D63, D71.