142 
BANKING STANDARDS 
the direction taken by net earnings measured first in terms of 
earning assets, and second, in terms of gross earnings. If no 
account is taken of the agreement or disagreement by districts, 
the results given in Table go are secured; if directions from 
year to year, as indicated by both measures, are paired by dis- 
tricts, those in Table 91 are obtained. The latter table is the 
more significant in measuring 
uniformities of direction-trend. 
The two measures of net earn- 
ings indicate uniformities in 
direction of year-to-year dis- 
trict changes in 74% of the 
possible cases. On the whole, 
therefore, upward or downward 
year-to-year trends of net earn- 
ings measured in terms of earn- 
ing assets agree with those of 
net earnings measured in terms 
of gross earnings. 
While each district has its 
= own seven-year net earnings 
level—the ratios increasing or decreasing from year to year—it 
also has a yearly level relative to that for the country as a whole. 
For instance, the ratios of net to gross earnings for St. Louis 
in 1919 and 1920 were 31.80 and 32.10, respectively. Relative 
to its own seven-year level, these ratios were high (that is, they 
were higher than 29.40), the direction of change between 1919 
and 1920 was upward, but the ratios for both years were below 
the levels for the country as a unit. If the various district ratios 
are compared with those for all districts combined, it is found 
that net earnings measured in terms of gross earnings are high 
in New York and Philadelphia, and low in Chicago, St. Louis, 
Minneapolis, and Kansas City during the entire seven years. In 
the other districts they are at times below and at times above 
this level. Are these districts high, low, or mixed, as determined 
by the same standard of comparison, when net earnings are 
measured in terms of earning assets? Table 92 gives, by districts, 
the number of years during 1919 to 1925 when net earnings 
were high or low measured in both units. It does not, however, 
pair the respective districts as is done in Table 93. The former