Paul Johnson in Commentary - The Anti-Semitic Disease aruges that anti-semitism is a nationally self-destructive behaviour. He cites many examples including this one:

An important instance of this historical law is the expulsion of the Jews (along with the Moors) from Spain in the 1490’s, and the subsequent witchhunt of New Christians, or converted Jews, by the Inquisition—a process that took place at precisely the moment when Spain’s penetration of the New World had opened up unprecedented opportunities for economic expansion. The effect of official anti-Semitism was to deprive Spain (and its colonies) of a class already notable for the astute handling of finance. As a consequence, the project of enlarging the New World’s silver mines and importing huge amounts of silver into Spain, far from leading to rational investment in a proto-industrial revolution or to the creation of modern financial services, had a profoundly deleterious impact, plunging the hitherto vigorous Spanish economy into inflation and long-term decline, and the government into repeated bankruptcy.