Check the OED online.
The usage among economists may have for the last 80 years been becoming standard among them. But none of the historical uses of "allocate," the transitive verb, indicates anything like a blindly started, but reasonably ending match of buyer and seller. They all indicate a debatable, deliberate assignment, like an appropriation.
-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Avner Offer
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2018 10:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] markets "allocating" goods
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.
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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
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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 "allocate," 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 "allocate," and to what extent that vocabulary is tangled up in the socialist calculation debate (or similar debates)? Is there anything to the referee's claim? If so, I'm interested. If not, I'd like to reply with a historical argument arguing this is a standard vocabulary.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Spencer
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H. Spencer Banzhaf
Professor, Dept. of Economics
Georgia State University
PO Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302
http://www2.gsu.edu/~prchsb/
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