BANKING STANDARDS 
earnings level, the years which were high as well as those which 
were low were in general the same in all districts. 
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Norms 
1. While the typical or modal ratios of gross earnings to earning 
assets for all districts for the years 1919 to 1925 fell within the 
group 6.25-6.75, the weighted arithmetic mean ratio was 6.58. 
The range extended from 5.44 for Philadelphia in 1919 to 8.85 for 
Dallas in 1921, but 69% of the ratios fell between 5.75 and 7.25. 
2. The ratios were generally low, relative to the respective dis- 
trict averages for the seven years, in 1919, 1920, 1923, 1924, and 
1925; they were universally high, measured in the same manner, 
in 1921 and 1922. 
Trends 
1. Ratios of gross earnings for all member banks in each dis- 
trict and in all districts tended to increase between 1919 and 1921 
and to decrease between 1921 and 1925. To this generalization 
there are exceptions in 1924, as compared with 1923, for the 
country as a whole, and in several pairs of years for individual 
districts. In spite of these exceptions, however, the trend is un- 
mistakable. 
2. From year to year and over the period 1919-1925, the rates 
of change in the ratios in the various districts, while differing from 
district to district, are much alike. The greatest rise came be- 
tween 1920 and 1921 for all but three districts; the year of great- 
est fall for ten of the twelve districts came between 1922 and 
1923. 
3. District ratios which are high in a given year, relative to 
the respective district levels established by the seven-year period, 
tend in the following year to fall, and those which are low tend to 
rise, the net percentage amounts of change varying directly with 
the percentage amounts of dispersion in the first year. Regres- 
sion to type is general, and probably finds its explanation in the 
fluidity of capital, banks individually and collectively being free, 
within certain common restrictions, to distribute their assets be- 
tween loans and investments in keeping with the demand for 
and supply of funds and the consequent ruling interest rates.