)2
BANKING STANDARDS
their seven-year averages, as is
done in Table 63, the following
generalizations may be made.
The amounts were low—that is,
below the averages—in 1919,
1920, and 1921; high—that is,
above the averages—in 1923,
1924, and 1925; and mixed—
high and low—in 1922. All
districts were low in 1920; all
but one, Philadelphia, in 1919;
and all but three, Richmond,
Atlanta, and Dallas, in 1921.
Similarly, all districts were high
in 1924; all but one, Atlanta, in 1925; and all but three, Philadel-
phia, Cleveland, and Richmond, in 1923.8 In 1922 the districts
were neither prevailingly high nor low. Speaking broadly, yet
with comparative accuracy, then, the years in which ratios of
operating expenses to gross earnings in the respective districts
were greater or less than the typical amounts—the respective
seven-year average levels—were essentially the same for all the
districts. Prior to 1922, operating expenses were relatively low;
subsequent to 1922, they were relatively high. Dissimilar as are
the ratios in the various districts, they have these common yearly
characteristics.
While the district ratios in all cases but one were low in 1919
relative to the seven-year level, the direction of change between
1919 and 1920 was downward for the twelve districts combined
and for all but three of them individually. Between 1920 and
1921, the general direction was upward—that is, operating ex-
nenses were encroaching on gross earnings—and to this rise the
banks in all but two of the districts contributed. While the aver-
age ratio for all districts in 1922 was the same as that for 1921,
ratios in Boston and the districts west of the Mississippi River
registered a rise, and those in the other districts a fall, between
these two years. Beginning in 1922 and lasting to 1924, the av-
erage and prevailing tendency was upward; from 1924 to 1925, it
was generally downward. The directions of change from year to
year are summarized in Table 64.
8 In two districts, New York and Atlanta, the ratios were the same as the seven-
year average.
NUMBER OF DISTRICTS WITH RATIOS OF
Tora. EXPENSE TO Gross EARNINGS
ABOVE OR BELOW THEIR RESPECTIVE
AVERAGES FOR THE PERIOD 1Q10-102%
r
