These findings are based on the average response of house prices and other variables to changes in
monetary policy. But, do they depend on specific circumstances? In particular, is monetary policy more or
less powerful during housing or real estate debt booms that are frequently precursors to financial crises?
To assess this possibility, I examined estimated responses to monetary policy during periods when house
prices or mortgage debt are high (or low) relative to their underlying trends. In neither case are the
estimated effects of monetary policy meaningfully different from the estimates shown in Figure 1.
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.