MEMBER BANKS IN DISTRICTS I AND II 267
by the first six months plus the second six months of the calendar
year.”’3
4. Net Earnings. This item is the difference between the
yross earnings and total expense, as defined above.
For the New York member banks. the items are defined as
follows:
1. Earning Assets (Loans and Investments). This item is the
“average for the year of the total of items 1 to 4 on the resources
side of the condition statements of the member banks, which
are submitted on ‘call’ dates, usually four times each year. The
items included are loans and discounts, overdrafts, United States
Government securities owned, and other bonds, stocks, securities,
etc., owned. The ‘call’ dates . . . . were as follows:
1923—April 3, June 30, September 14, December 31
1924—March 31, June 30, October 10, December 31
t925—April 6, June 30. September 28, December 31.”¢
2. Total Expense. This is “the aggregate of the items listed
ander ‘Expenses’ in Section 1 of the Report of Earnings,
Expenses and Dividends, which is submitted by the member
banks twice each year. Each report covers a six months’ period—
the first ends June 30 and the second December 31.” The items
are as follows: salaries and wages, interest and discounts on
borrowed money, interest on bank deposits, interest on demand
deposits, interest on time deposits, taxes, and other expenses.
The sources of the data for the Boston and for the New
York district banks being the reports made to the Comptroller
of the Currency, the data themselves are basically the same.
Only as respects the number of calls which are averaged does
the method of computing the yearly earning assets differ as
between the Boston and the New York reports. Moreover, the
reports to the Comptroller are the sources of the data used in
Parts II and III, and taken from the Federal Reserve Bulletin.
Accordingly, the data used throughout this study are substantially
homogeneous respecting definition of terms and groupings of
items.
"3 Ibid.
# Extract from a letter from W. Randolph Burgess, Assistant Federal Reserve
Agent, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
fF D1
