The younger brother of the famed German sociologist Max Weber, Alfred Weber developed an enormously influential model of corporate location based on the minimization of transportation costs that powerfully shaped economic geography, particularly location theory, spatial science, and regional science, for decades to come. Weber's famous model was originally developed for the analysis of manufacturing, although it can be applied to other sectors such as services as well. It was very useful to the exploration of the influence of transportation costs in a rigorous way, and many economic geographers still work in this tradition.

Alfred Weber taught at the University of Heidelberg from 1907 to 1933, when he was dismissed by the Nazis. Although he stayed in the country during World War II, he played a ...