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BANKING STANDARDS
2. Ratios of total expense to earning assets and to gross earn-
ings which are high or low in a given year, relative to the seven-
year level of the district to which they belong, tend generally to
decrease or to increase, respectively, in the following year, the
net percentage amounts of decrease or of increase varying directly
with the percentage amounts of dispersion from these levels. That
is, according to both measures, operating expenses regress to type
—the type being the seven-year district averages.
Such, in brief, are the more common norms and trends which
characterize these ratios.
Total expense data for individual member banks are not avail-
able in the publications of the Federal Reserve Board, although
those relating to national banks, and to state bank and trust
company members as groups are given. The ratios which have
been used up to this point in the discussion are broad averages—
averages for all of the member banks in a given district for a
given year, for the membership in all districts for a given year, for
single districts for the period 1919 to 1925, and for all districts
for this stretch of years. Such averages cover up a multitude of
differences attributable to types of banks, their location, sizes,
and so on. In order to be clear about this matter, care has been
used to indicate that the ratios are averages, to use the types of
analysis which would bring out significant differences, and to gen-
eralize in terms suitable to the data themselves.
While the foregoing norms and trends relating to total expense
may characterize the entire bank membership in the System, they
may or may not be typical of any one part of the total. Accord-
ingly, it is of interest to determine the similarities and differences
which characterize ratios of total expense to gross earnings (1)
for national banks, and (2) for state bank and trust company
members, and to observe wherein the norms and trends discov-
ered for the entire membership hold for the two groups. This is
done immediately below.
B. National Banks, and State Bank and Trust Company
Members
Out of each $100 of gross earnings received by all national
banks in the Federal Reserve system during the years'® 1919 to
0 Ending June 30.
