NORMS AND TRENDS IN DEPOSITS 57
of total deposits—the ratios being prevailingly lower each suc-
cessive year—the downward movement from year to year was
larger for districts in the years in which the percentages were
high than for those in which they were low—high and low being
determined by the average district levels for the seven years.
That is, there appears to be a tendency for the ratios to seek a
level, this tendency being a function of their dispersion about
the seven-year average.
4. THE RELATION OF TIME DEPOSITS TO EARNING ASSETS AND TO
TOTAL DEPOSITS
The total deposits of member banks in the Federal Reserve
system, as used in this study,!® consist of the combined demand
and time items. The discussion in Section 3, immediately pre-
ceding, had to do with an analysis of the demand items, measured
in different ways, in the different districts for the years 1919 to
1925, separately and combined. The following section is con-
cerned with a study of the norms and tendencies in the time
deposits.
(1) Ratios of Time Deposits to Earning Assets
According to Table 41, which gives the ratios of time deposits
to earning assets for all member banks by districts and years, the
average for the combined years for all districts is 28.03. The
corresponding amount is 19.01 in 1919, and almost double this,
34.88, in 1925. The smallest percentage for the combined years
is 15.08, for Dallas; the largest is 43.01, for Minneapolis. Wide
differences exist in this series. The individual amounts range
from 8.74 (for New York, in 1919) to 50.98 (for San Francisco
in 1925). If the 84 ratios—seven for each of the twelve districts
—are distributed into frequency groups, as is done in Chart 11,
more of the percentages fall in the group 20-25 than at any other
place, as the groups are set up, although there is concentration of
instances at groups 30-35 and 35-40. Indeed, these two groups
contain one-third, and the limits set by 20% and 40% contain
two-thirds of all of the ratios.
Chart 11 pictures the distribution of the ratios when the period
1019-1925 is taken as a unit. Even a casual inspection of Table
10 See page 32.
