Resource allocation

Resource allocation is the distribution of limited goods, services, or opportunities among competing needs. It determines who receives what, when, and on what basis.

Rationing: Rationing limits or directs access to scarce goods through rules, quotas, or eligibility requirements. It allocates scarce goods by restricting how much each person or group can obtain.
Market economy: A market economy coordinates production and exchange largely through prices and voluntary transactions. Markets allocate many resources through prices rather than direct administrative assignment.
Healthcare rationing: Healthcare rationing is the explicit or implicit limitation of access to medical care when resources are scarce. It exposes how allocation criteria affect access to treatment and health outcomes.
Distributive justice: Distributive justice concerns the fair allocation of benefits and burdens among members of a society. It supplies ethical standards for judging who should receive scarce resources.
Scarcity: Scarcity is the condition in which available resources are insufficient to satisfy all wants or uses. Limited supply creates the need to choose among competing claims.
Queueing theory: Queueing theory studies waiting lines and systems in which arrivals compete for limited service capacity. First-come service allocates capacity through waiting time rather than price or priority.
Central planning: Central planning is an economic system in which a central authority directs major production and distribution decisions. It replaces decentralized allocation decisions with administrative plans.
Organ transplantation: Organ transplantation replaces a damaged organ with an organ from a donor. Transplant systems must allocate donated organs among patients with competing medical claims.
Allocative efficiency: Allocative efficiency occurs when resources are directed toward their highest-valued uses given available constraints. It evaluates whether an allocation produces the greatest possible value from available resources.
Opportunity cost: Opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative forgone when a choice is made. Every allocation uses resources that could have served another purpose.

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