Apportionment of productive assets among different uses.
The issue of resource allocation arises as societies seek to balance limited resources ( capital , labour , land ) against the various and often unlimited wants of their members. Mechanisms of resource allocation include the price system in free-market economies and government planning, either in state-run economies or in the public sectors of mixed economies. The aim is always to allocate resources in such a way as to obtain the maximum possible output from a given combination of resources.