Economic historians dispute whether the Expulsion harmed Spain’s economy

Evidence

Attempting to grapple with overall statistics, E. J. Hamilton (1978) played down the economic consequences because the price indices showed no changes after 1609. On the other hand, Chaunu (1961) deduced from the fall in trade with the Indies that the economy did suffer. (An objection to both these economic historians is that they analyze statistics that are accessible rather than statistics that are informative.) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1674

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the methodological point in Milgrom’s work about analyzing accessible rather than informative statistics — relevant data availability shaping conclusions.
• SEED: An essay angle: how pre-digital historians chose which statistics to treat as meaningful, and how that choice predetermines their verdicts on historical disasters.