[ItalianFX]

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I'll give a few examples as far as my understanding of what the question is asking: for parking on campus (if the parking is limited) there might be a lottery for those spots. The allocation mechanism in that case is the lottery. For high demand concert tickets it might be queueing (or first-come first-served), which is the allocation mechanism in that case.

My guess is your prof wants you to see that not everything is 'free market', and that there is probably a place for such procedures/markets.

Shane

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Now that you say this, I actually know what you're talking about, but I don't think I was taught it as "allocation mechanism."

When I get back to my apartment tonight, I'll look in my Econ notebooks and see if I can find what they are.