One potential concern with using such a long time sample is that structural change has fundamentally
altered the effects of monetary policy on the economy. To assess that possibility, the same analysis is
conducted using only data from the period after the Second World War. For this shorter sample, the
estimated effect on house prices is somewhat larger and the effect on output is smaller. This results in a
larger estimated ratio of 5.7 for the decline in house prices relative to that in output, compared with the
full-sample estimates.