Hall polynomials, inverse Kostka polynomials and puzzles

We study two different one-parameter generalizations of Littlewood--Richardson coefficients, namely Hall polynomials and generalized inverse Kostka polynomials, and derive new combinatorial formulae for them. Our combinatorial expressions are closely related to puzzles, originally introduced by Knutson and Tao in their work on the equivariant cohomology of the Grassmannian.