Alfred Weber
| Alfred Weber | |
|---|---|
| Born |
30 July 1868 Erfurt, Prussian Saxony |
| Died | 2 May 1958 (aged 89) Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg |
Alfred Weber (30 July 1868 – 2 May 1958) was a German economist, geographer, sociologist and of culture whose work was influential in the development of modern economic geography.
Born in Erfurt and raised in Charlottenburg.
From 1907 to 1933, Weber was a professor at the University of Heidelberg.
Weber supported reintroducing theory and causal models to the field of economics, in addition to using historical analysis. In this field, his achievements involve work on early models of industrial location. He lived during the period when sociology became a separate field of science.
Weber maintained a commitment to the "philosophy of history" traditions. He contributed theories for analyzing social change in Western civilization as a confluence of civilization (intellectual and technological), social processes (organizations) and culture (art, religion, and philosophy).
Leaning heavily on work developed by the relatively unknown Wilhelm Launhardt, Alfred Weber formulated a least cost theory of industrial location which tries to explain and predict the locational pattern of the industry at a macro-scale. It emphasizes that firms seek a site of minimum transport and labor cost.
The point for locating an industry that minimizes costs of transportation and labor requires analysis of three factors:
The point of optimal transportation is based on the costs of distance to the "material index" – the ratio of weights of the intermediate products (raw materials) to the finished product.
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