NORMS AND TRENDS IN EARNING ASSETS 29 
changed, the amounts will indicate by years the consistency among 
the several districts. 
Table 14 is similar to Table 6, which relates to ratios of loans 
and discounts to earning assets. The amounts are different, and 
the signs throughout are opposite. A negative change in loans and 
discounts corresponds to a positive change in investments, and 
vice versa. All districts had lower ratios of investments to earn- 
ing assets in 1920 than in 1919; all but one, lower ratios in 1921 
than in 1920; and all but one, higher ratios in 1922 than in 1921. 
The increase in 1922, as compared with 1921, continues through 
1923—all districts moving in a given direction but at different 
rates. In 1924, nine of the twelve districts reversed their direc- 
tion of change, eight of them in 1925 changing the downward 
trend between 1923 and 1924 to an upward one between 1924 and 
1925. The consistency of change in direction does not appear 
to be of the random type; it is rather indicative of a control of the 
composition of the earning assets common to the banks in the 
separate districts. Table 7 (page 19), with the column headings 
interchanged, summarizes the uniformity of the direction of 
change from year to year. 
While Table 8 (page 19), with signs interchanged in both the 
stub and the caption, serves to indicate the direction of change 
TABLE 13 
COMPARATIVE PERCENTAGE AMOUNTS OF DEVIATION FROM DISTRICT 
LEVELS AND NET YEAR-TO-YEAR CHANGE IN RATIOS OF 
INVESTMENTS TO EARNING ASSETS 
DIFFERENCES FROM DISTRICT AVERAGES, 1919-1925 
Sign 
I 
Number of 
Cases 
2 
Percentage 
Groups 
vVeraces 
ud over 
~tr - 00 
ypnday ~ 
r 
0 
art ove 
rv 
Avera 
Average 
Percentage 
~~ 
r 
17 
1.8: 
4.09 
10.20 
17.08 
10.08 
NET PERCENTAGE 
CHANGE FROM 
YEAR TO YEAR 
~ 6.19 
—-J7 12 
~ 8 ox 
2.06 
+ 70 
+ 4.06 
+ 9.74 
+ 5.46