apportionment of productive assets among different uses. Resource allocation arises as an issue because the resources of a society are in limited supply, whereas human wants are usually unlimited, and because any given resource can have many alternative uses.

In free-enterprise systems, the price system is the primary mechanism through which resources are distributed among the uses most desired by consumers. In planned economies and in the public sectors of mixed economies, the decisions regarding resource distribution are political. Within the limits of existing technology, the aim of any economizing agency is to allocate resources in a manner that obtains the maximum possible output from a given combination of resources. (See distribution theory; productivity.)