Consider the following statements about Weber's Least Cost Theory of industrial location: 1. Weber proposed that industries locate where total transport costs for raw materials and finished goods are minimized. 2. According to Weber, labour cost can cause industries to deviate from the point of minimum transport cost. 3. Weber's theory completely ignores the role of market demand in industrial location. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Explanation

Weber's 1909 theory of industrial location asks where production should be placed when the market and two raw-material sources are fixed points forming a location triangle. The preferred site is the least-cost point: the place where the total cost of moving raw materials to the factory and finished goods to the market is minimised. This makes Statement 1 correct. Weber did not stop at transport cost alone. After locating the least-transport-cost point, he considered whether a cheaper-labour site could offset the extra transport cost; this is expressed through the isodapane idea, so Statement 2 is also correct. Statement 3 overstates the theory's limitation because the market or consumption point is explicitly one vertex of Weber's triangle.

Why the other options are wrong

• (A) Option A leaves out Statement 2, although Weber's model allows a cheap-labour location to pull an industry away from the minimum transport-cost point when the labour saving exceeds the added transport cost.
• (C) Option C includes Statement 3, but Weber's location triangle contains the market as one of its fixed points, so the theory does not completely ignore the market.
• (D) Option D treats all three statements as correct, but Statement 3 is false because Weber explicitly works with a market or consumption point in the industrial location triangle.

Concept

This tests industrial location theory within economic geography, especially the balance between transport cost, labour cost and market position. RAS asks this often because classical models such as Weber's help explain industrial regions and the logic behind factory location.

Source

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Location theory"

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