  This paper addresses the problem of resource allocation for systems in which
a primary and a secondary link share the available spectrum by an underlay or
overlay approach. After observing that such a scenario models both cognitive
radio and D2D communications, we formulate the problem as the maximization of
the secondary energy efficiency subject to a minimum rate requirement for the
primary user. This leads to challenging non-convex, fractional problems. In the
underlay scenario, we obtain the global solution by means of a suitable
reformulation. In the overlay scenario, two algorithms are proposed. The first
one yields a resource allocation fulfilling the first-order optimality
conditions of the resource allocation problem, by solving a sequence of easier
fractional problems. The second one enjoys a weaker optimality claim, but an
even lower computational complexity. Numerical results demonstrate the merits
of the proposed algorithms both in terms of energy-efficient performance and
complexity, also showing that the two proposed algorithms for the overlay
scenario perform very similarly, despite the different complexity.
