Tue Sources oF PusLic UtiLity CAPITAL 
1917 1919 1921 1924 
Class interval.............. .02-.039 .04-.059 .02-.039 .02-.039 
Modal ratio. .............. .032 .048 .033 .033 
Concentration about the mode 60% 549, 599%, 62% 
The typical ratios are practically constant, except for the year 
1919, when the mode rose to .048. In addition to this general tendency 
for most of the companies to increase their current liabilities, there 
seems to have been an opposite movement by a small number of the 
companies in the year 1919 whereby they actually decreased the amount 
of Current Liabilities. This is shown as follows: 
Percentage of cases falling in class interval 1917 1919 1921 1924 
00-019. ....... ... 1397 189, 139, 149, 
Eighteen per cent of the companies had a ratio of Current Liabil- 
ties to Total Equities of less than .02 in 1919 as compared to 13 per 
cent for 1917 and 1921. That is, 5 per cent more companies took a 
conservative position in 1919 than in either 1917 or 1921. 
SUMMARY OF THE CURRENT LIABILITIES RATIO 
While the Current Liabilities Ratio is a small item of the Total 
Equities, yet in relation to its own size, it varies almost 100 per cent. 
For all the companies together the typical approximated ratio is .031 
with a high concentration of the cases, 61 per cent. in the three highest 
bars out of eighteen. 
The typical ratios by geographical location are .033 for the East 
and Middle West, .034 for the South, and .028 for the West. The 
percentages of concentration are all high. The size of this ratio in- 
creases with the size of the company. Based on the Total Equities of 
the companies, the ratios are .028 for those with 5-9 millions, .032 for 
those with 10-49 millions, and .036 for those with 50 millions and over. 
The lowest ratio of Current Liabilities to Total Equities was for 
the Holding Companies with .026. The Traction Companies had a 
ratio of .031 and the Gas and Electric had .035. As in all the other 
analyses of this ratio, the percentages of concentration were high here 
too, varying from 58 per cent to 72 per cent. The highest typical ratio 
of Current Liabilities was recorded in the analysis by years. For 1919 
the ratio was .048 whereas it was .032 in 1917 and .033 in 1921 and 
1924,