what are the demerits of rationing devices of scarce resources such as Ration, Auction, First come first serve

Question

Resources are always scarce. The economist use certain devices , namely Ration, Auction and First come first serve for distribution of these resources. What are the demerits of each of these 03 rationing devices?

Answer 1

The merits of rationing are that it avoid hoarding and insures that everyone has an equal opportunity, according to some definition of equal, to access a resource. This is the device that is being considered for vaccine allocation should avian flu actually become an issue.
Auctioning is basically the free market device. The advantage is that the resource is allocated to where it (in a hypothetically perfectly functioning market) is most useful. This is what we have for gasoline right now. In a functioning market, this prevents the waste of something like a rationing device where some people may get a ration of gasoline, but they don't really need to drive as much as a fire department might, so they take weekend trips they might not otherwise take.
First come first serve might be seen as a fair approach, where everyone has equal access, so if they want it bad enough they can wait in a long line for it. About the only merit is the perception by people that it is fair.