Managing competition: a survey of methods for allocating scarce resources

Abstract

The essence of resource management is determining the optimal rates of use and allocation of scarce resources. However, a problem arises in determining what optimality means. Often the resource management agency uses different criteria than other parties to define desirable outcomes. This paper concentrates on the problem of allocating resources in isolation from the problem of determining the rate of their use, to understand better the implications of choosing alternative resource allocation methods.