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DannyB writes:

How Prohibition Tossed a Wet Blanket on America’s Inventors

New research reveals the link between bars and new inventions.

In Silicon Valley, it’s only a six-mile drive from the Googleplex to Facebook HQ. In Manhattan, Madison Avenue has long been lined with renowned advertising firms. And in San Francisco, the city’s best burrito joints are clustered in the Mission District.

A few years ago, Mike Andrews became interested in this human geography—the way that innovation and invention emerge from specific places. This phenomenon of the best coders, ad men, and burrito chefs clustering together interests everyone from economists to sociologists.

[...] “If you press economists on this when they’re giving talks, and ask why it matters that everyone’s in the same city or within a few blocks, they’ll say something like, ‘People get together and talk at the bar,’” says Andrews. “I’ve actually heard this multiple times. [But] I don’t think direct evidence of that has ever existed before.”

So, during his PhD days, Andrews came up with the idea of finding that evidence. He’d do it by looking at that time the United States shuttered all its bars overnight: Prohibition.

[...] The result? A 15 percent decrease in the number of patents. The areas whose saloons shuttered had become less inventive.

[...] A careful researcher, Andrews road-tested his theory and results. He looked at patents received by women, who were generally unwelcome in pubs and taverns at the time, after local laws against alcohol went into effect. As expected, the decline was much smaller for female inventors. Similarly, he looked at serial inventors, who often worked for companies and might be more inspired by in-office conversation and collaboration. They too were less affected by prohibition.

It's a good thing patents are a direct measure of true innovation.

Original Submission