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European Regions that Expelled Jews Have Lower GDP than Those that Didn't
(Daily Mail-UK) Richard Gray - Jewish communities were instrumental in the establishment of some of the early banks during the Renaissance and the effects are still noticeable in modern economies. "Cities in which the local Jewish community in 1500 caused an early development of the banking sector, have more banks today and, because of this, are more developed today," said Professor Luigi Pascali, an economist at the University of Warwick and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. In a paper in The Review of Economics and Statistics, Pascali examined the presence of Jewish communities in Italian cities during the Renaissance. He estimates that if the Jews had not been expelled from southern Italy by its Spanish rulers after 1503, the GDP there would have been 7% higher and that the expulsion of the Jews may explain at least 10% of the income gap currently seen between northern and southern Italy. He added that similar trends likely happened in other countries in Europe when Jewish communities were expelled in the Middle Ages.