Sociologist and economist, born in Erfurt, Germany. He studied at Heidelberg and Berlin universities, and held posts at Berlin (1893), Freiberg (1894), Heidelberg (1897), and Munich (1919). His best known work is Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1904, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), which was a major influence on sociological theory. He helped to draft the constitution for the Weimar Republic (1919).