In broad agreement with John Womack, the referee¹s usage of Œallocate¹
would seem to go back to the 17th century British usage, still common in
the 19th century, which signified the allocation or apportionment of
something by law or by direct human agency. Allocation by a Œmarket¹ (or
suchlike) therefore represented a metaphorical twist. But given that the
metaphorical usage is now commonplace (at least for economists), the
referee is being needlessly historicist. You might suggest that s/he
becomes acquainted with modern language.

Terry Peach  


On 01/08/2018, 15:13, "Societies for the History of Economics on behalf of
Avner Offer" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>There is a legal concept in anti-trust called 'market allocation' which
>refers to competitors dividing markets among them. But there is also a
>usage of allocation by means of the market. Examples of both abound on
>Google. 
>
>==========================================================================
>==
>  From Avner Offer, Chichele Professor Emeritus of Economic History,
>University of Oxford
>           All Souls College, High St., Oxford OX1 4AL, tel. +44
>(0)7551960880
>          email: [log in to unmask]
>          personal website:
>          http://sites.google.com/site/avoffer/avneroffer
>    Recently published:
>   -The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy and the
>Market Turn
>     (Princeton University Press, 2016).
>http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10841.html
>    -Burn Mark: A Photographic Memoir of the Six Day War (Lintel Press,
>2014). See www.avneroffer.net
>________________________________________
>From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of
>Spencer Banzhaf <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: 01 August 2018 14:17
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [SHOE] markets "allocating" goods
>
>All,
>
>A co-author and I are currently revising an empirical paper in which we
>discuss how markets allocate goods to households under various market
>conditions.  Oddly, a referee is objecting to our use of the word
>³allocate,² or at least expresses curiosity about it.  (S)he suggests it
>implies the existence of a social planner consciously deciding who gets
>what.
>
>Does anybody know when economists started using words like ³allocate,²
>and to what extent that vocabulary is tangled up in the socialist
>calculation debate (or similar debates)?  Is there anything to the
>referee¹s claim?  If so, I¹m interested.  If not, I¹d like to reply with
>a historical argument arguing this is a standard vocabulary.
>
>Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
>Spencer
>-------------------------------------------------
>H. Spencer Banzhaf
>Professor, Dept. of Economics
>Georgia State University
>PO Box 3992
>Atlanta, GA  30302
>http://www2.gsu.edu/~prchsb/