NORMS AND TRENDS IN GROSS EARNINGS 77 
the control of banks individually and collectively. Each bank is 
free, within certain common restrictions, to use its funds in the 
manner most conducive to profit. Presumably it exercises such 
restricted freedom, as financial prudence dictates, in increasing or 
decreasing the proportion of its assets as between different forms 
of revenue-producing agents. Loans and investments are avail- 
able, but the returns upon them are determined by forces common 
not alone to one market but to markets, integrated and overlap- 
ping, a fact which helps to explain why the tendency of regression 
to type is not isolated but general. 
Each district, as has already been indicated, has its own level 
of gross earnings in terms of earning assets. About this level the 
ratios fluctuate, the years which are high or low in one district 
tending to be high or low in all districts. But what are the levels 
for the respective districts? While the ratios themselves are given 
in Table 50, the nature (plus and minus) and the percentage 
amounts of variation from the averages for the country as a whole 
are shown in Table 55 for each district for the combined and for 
the individual years. 
Based upon the seven-year period 1919 to 1925, the ratios in 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Chicago are 
lower than those for the country as a whole, while those for the 
other districts are higher. Moreover, Boston and Philadelphia 
are lower than the yearly country average for the full period of 
TABLE 55 
PERCENTAGE DIFFERENCES OF DISTRICT AVERAGES OF RATIOS OF 
Gross EARNINGS TO EARNING ASSETS FOR ALL MEMBER 
BANKS, FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, FROM AVERAGES 
FOR THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE 
PERCFNTAGE DrerweENCES FROM THE COUNTRV'S AVERAGES 
FEDERAL 
RESERVE 
Di1sTRICTS 
Average 
010-25) 
1910 
1020 
1021 
922 
IL 
.Q24 
102% 
Boston. ..... 
New York. .. 
“hiladelphia.. 
“leveland.... 
Richmond. . .: 
Atlanta...... 
chicago. ....: 
5t. Louis. . . .! 
Minneapolis. . 
Kansas City. . 
Dallas. ..... | 
San Francisco 
00 
- 3.95 
~ 6.54 
F 0.30 
- 3.50 
F11.70 
- 0.76 
t+ 2.28 
+ 8.97 
t14.44 
F20.36 
+ 5.47 
- 17 
- 0.97 
- yc 
Lo¢ 
io- 
+ 
trg.2, 
+16.65 
+24 .66 
+ 8.172 
r 
- 55 
- 1.29 
— 0.63 
L- 8€¢ 
of 
26 
70 
+ ,.7% 
+12.24 
+190.84 
+4 1.71 
i 
v.00 
) 
“7 
x 
~3 
2 
2 
"= 
.023 
-54 
.51 
28 
26 
.77 
ar 
oF 
F o1.38 
+16.1%7 
418.68 
+ 0.42 
a 
ra 
t20.7. 
+ 0.53 
$a. 
+19.37 
+ 3.73 
“1. 
422.13 
4 c.14 
An 2 
- 2.68