Macdonald cumulants, $G$-inversion polynomials and $G$-parking functions

We prove a combinatorial formula for Macdonald cumulants which generalizes the celebrated formula of Haglund for Macdonald polynomials. We provide several applications of our formula. Firstly, it gives a new, constructive proof of a strong factorization property of Macdonald polynomials proven recently by the author of this paper. Moreover it proves that Macdonald cumulants are $q,t$--positive in the monomial and in the fundamental quasisymmetric bases. Furthermore, we use our formula to prove the recent higher-order Macdonald positivity conjecture for the coefficients of the Schur polynomials indexed by hooks. Our combinatorial formula relates Macdonald cumulants to the generating function of $G$-parking functions, or equivalently to a certain specialization of the Tutte polynomials.