homework help: macroeconomics

[ShaneP]

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It's all supply and demand.

I'm an Econ major and I have never heard of "allocation mechanism," but when in doubt, the answer is always supply and
demand.

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I have an MA in econ and have never heard this term in an econ class.

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I've got an MA in econ, and almost a Ph.D. in Econ, and I have heard this [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I don't know exactly what your prof is talking about, but as I understand it, an allocation mechanism is a mechanism (the process? the market? something like that) that determines how the good is distributed. In other words, how is it decided who gets the goods?

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

[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.

[ItalianFX]

OH crap.

I just opened up my Econ notebook and wouldn't ya know:

"Allocative Mechanisms"

So I guess the first time I heard this was January 19, 2005, which was a Wednesday. I always write down the dates. So yeah, I forgot.

Anyways, they are:

-Market System
-Brute Force
-Queuing "waiting in line"
-Random Selection
-Tradition
-Government

[ItalianFX]

So it's obviously...

Marijuana is through Government because they all smoke weed.
And babies is by Brute Force because No means Yes.

Totally joking...