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Webers View on Theory

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The Four Stages of the Productive and Distributive Process ... The total transportation cost (TTC) TTC = RM FP. Case 1: Bottled and canned soft drink ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Webers View on Theory


1
Webers View on Theory
Factual Materials
Pure Theory
Realistic Theory
2
The Four Stages of the Productive and
Distributive Process
  • Securing the place of the location and the fixed
    capital for equipment
  • Securing the materials and the power and fuel
    sources
  • The manufacturing process itself
  • The shipping of the goods

3
Cost involved in each stage of the productive and
distributive process
  • Profit, the interest rates of the fixed and
    operating capital of the different stages, and
    the power, the cost of labor, transportation
    costs, the general expenses and the cost of land.
  • Which of these elements vary according to
    location and thus represent general regional
    factors of location?
  • Labor costs and transportation costs
  • Agglomerative or deglomerative factors

4
Weberian Model Least Cost Approach
  • Assumptions
  • Uniform or isotropic plain in a single country
  • One finished product at a time is considered
  • The raw materials are fixed at certain locations
    (known) and the point of consumption is also
    fixed and known.
  • Labor is fixed geographically but its
    availability is unlimited.
  • Transportation costs are a direct function of
    weight of the item and the distance shipped.

5
Factors Shaping Weberian Spatial Outcomes
  • Transportation sets the general regional pattern
    of manufacturing
  • Weight and Distance Material Index
  • Then, consider spatial variations in the cost of
    labor
  • Coefficient of Labor
  • The final determinant is agglomeration economies

6
Raw Material Classes
  • Spatial Distribution of Availability
  • Ubiquitous raw materials -- Air
  • Localized raw materials -- Coal
  • Weight Loss during Processing
  • Pure raw materials water
  • Gross raw materials Iron ores

7
Transportations Costs
  • The cost of collecting raw materials (RM)
  • The cost of distributing the finished products
    (FP)
  • The total transportation cost (TTC)
  • TTC RM FP

8
Case 1 Bottled and canned soft drink
9
(No Transcript)
10
Case 2 Copper Ore
11
(No Transcript)
12
Further Elaborations of Weberian Models
  • Isotim a line of equal transport cost for any
    material or product
  • Isodapane a line of equal total transport cost

13
Cont
  • Critical Isodapane isodapane which signifies the
    outer limit for alternative locations
    (alternative to the location with minimum
    aggregate transport costs) in a Weberian
    locational triangle or other polygon. Its
    specification is dependent on the savings (labor
    cost, scale- or agglomeration economies)
    associated with such an alternative beyond the
    critical isodapane, savings are not sufficient to
    compensate for the additional transport costs.

14
Finding Critical Isodapane
  • Total transportation cost is minimized at Point
    T, 4. As we move away from T, total
    transportation costs increase. At Point L, labor
    costs are 2 per unit less than at T. Then where
    do you want to locate your firm? Find a critical
    isodapane, too.

15
Transportation Technologies and Critical
Isodapane t1
1
L
2
3
16
Transportation Technologies and Critical
Isodapane t2
L
1
2
3
17
Weber was Misunderstood!
  • Contemporary spatial economists have focused on
    Webers technical approach, Locational
    Triangle.
  • Why?
  • The partial reading of Webers works by the first
    spatial economists who discovered him
  • The development of Operational Research
  • Spatial economists do not even bother to re-read
    Weber

18
Post-Weberian Trends
  • The Divisibility of the Industrial Process of
    Production and Distribution
  • Locational Factors and Diversification
  • Locational Factors and Division of Labor Between
    Industries

19
Divisibility of the Industrial Process 1
  • In the first five chapters, Weber assumes that
    the activity connected with the productive and
    distributive process of an industry is a uniform
    and indivisible thing which can only as a whole
    be drawn to and from the material deposits and
    the place of consumption by locational forces and
    which goes on entirely independent of the
    activities of other industries. (p.173)

20
Divisibility of the Industrial Process 2
  • This indivisibility of the productive process and
    its independence of the productive processes of
    other industries do not in fact exist (p. 173) ?
    As a result, such processes were very seldom all
    located in the same place.
  • Productive Process as a heap of little balls
    which have been rolled together at one place by
    the locational factors but which may be
    redistributed by those factors

21
Divisibility of the Industrial Process 3
  • Once Weber rejects the hypothesis of the possible
    indivisibility of productive and distributive
    processes and the divisibility of the
    manufacturing process, the agglomeration of these
    processes, or parts of these processes, affects
    their costs (economies of agglomeration).

22
The Diversification of a Plant
  • Weber p.196
  • We have proceeded thus far on the assumption that
    the various processes of industrial production
    are independent of each other without any
    relationship to one another. This is not the
    case. They in fact interact upon one another in
    various ways.
  • Different processes may be gathered within a
    single plant, thus leading to a local linking of
    independent industrial processes initially
    located at some distance

23
Division of Labor Between Industries 1
  • Weber studies the emergence of auxiliary
    industries which are responsible for part of a
    divisible productive processes.
  • Reasons and conditions for auxiliary industries
  • Location of auxiliary industries

24
Division of Labor Between Industries 2
  • Reasons and Conditions for Auxiliary Industries
  • The complete technical equipment which is
    necessary to carry out a process of production
    may in highly developed industries become so
    specialized that minutes parts of the process of
    production utilize specialized machines and that
    even quite large-scale plants are not able to
    make full use of such equipment. Such specialized
    machines must then, together with their own parts
    of the process of production, be taken out of the
    single large plant and must work for several of
    them, i.e., become the basis of independent
    auxiliary industries (128-129)

25
Division of Labor Between Industries 3
  • The Location of Auxiliary Industries 1
  • Wrapping material manufacturinga logic of
    exchange the location of the main industry will
    be the same as that of the auxiliary industry, to
    the extent that such location will make it
    possible to minimize transportation costs
  • Industry of Investment Goodsa logic of
    production location near the main industry
    becomes a precondition for the production and
    sale of equipment goods. These industries make up
    a technical whole composed of mutually dependent
    parts.

26
Division of Labor Between Industries 4
  • The Location of Auxiliary Industries 2
  • The production and sales of auxiliary industry
    seem to depend on whether it is located near the
    customer companies or not. In such conditions,
    agglomeration is not only a way of reducing
    production and distribution costs owing to
    economies of agglomeration in particular, but it
    becomes a pre-condition for production.
  • The geographical concentration of the main
    industry will make it possible to reach the
    technical minimal point of concentration which is
    required for the emergence of an auxiliary
    industry
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