Is the response of REIT returns to monetary policy asymmetric?

In this paper, we investigate whether monetary policy has asymmetric effects on U.S. equity REIT returns by using Markov-switching models. We adopt a number of measures of monetary policy. We find substantial regime switching in the response to a monetary policy action that corresponds to "boom" and "bust" regimes. In particular, we find strong evidence that policy actions taken during boom markets have larger effects on REIT returns than those taken during bust markets. This result is in contrast to the empirical evidence of asymmetry related to output and stock returns.