In economics, resource allocation is the assignment of available resources to various uses. In the context of an entire economy, resources can be allocated by various means, such as markets, or planning.
In project management, resource allocation or resource management is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource availability and the project time.
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating public policy or economic conditions without creating new wealth.Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, stifled competition, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, heightened debt levels, risk of growing corruption and cronyism, decreased public trust in institutions, and potential national decline.
Successful capture of regulatory agencies (if any) to gain a coercive monopoly can result in advantages for rent-seekers in a market while imposing disadvantages on their uncorrupt competitors. This is one of many possible forms of rent-seeking behavior.
In economics, a market is a composition of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services (including labour power) to buyers in exchange for money. It can be said that a market is the process by which the value of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and allocation of resources in a society. Markets allow any tradeable item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights (cf. ownership) of services and goods. Markets generally supplant gift economies and are often held in place through rules and customs, such as a booth fee, competitive pricing, and source of goods for sale (local produce or stock registration).
Markets can differ by products (goods, services) or factors (labour and capital) sold, product differentiation, place in which exchanges are carried, buyers targeted, duration, selling process, government regulation, taxes, subsidies, minimum wages, price ceilings, legality of exchange, liquidity, intensity of speculation, size, concentration, exchange asymmetry, relative prices, volatility and geographic extension. The geographic boundaries of a market may vary considerably, for example the food market in a single building, the real estate market in a local city, the consumer market in an entire country, or the economy of an international trade bloc where the same rules apply throughout. Markets can also be worldwide, see for example the global diamond trade. National economies can also be classified as developed markets or developing markets.
The economic calculation problem (ECP) is a criticism of using central economic planning (rather than market-based mechanisms) for the allocation of the factors of production. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in his 1920 article "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" and later expanded upon by Friedrich Hayek.
In his first article, Mises described the nature of the price system under capitalism and described how individual subjective values (while criticizing other theories of value) are translated into the objective information necessary for rational allocation of resources in society. He argued that central planning necessarily leads to an irrational and inefficient allocation of resources. In market exchanges, prices reflect the supply and demand of resources, labor and products. In the article, Mises focused his criticism on the deficiencies of the socialisation of capital goods, but he later went on to elaborate on various different forms of socialism in his book Socialism. He briefly mentioned the problem in the 3rd book of Human Action: a Treatise on Economics, where he also elaborated on the different types of socialism, namely the "Hindenburg" and "Lenin" models, which he viewed as fundamentally flawed despite their ideological differences.