There are many indicators to help us evaluate the U.S. economy, but international data are a little more limited. Which is why FRED is fortunate to have World Bank data to compare economic conditions across countries. Today, we look at how well banks are doing—according to their return on assets—all over the world. Measuring banks’ ROA is relatively simple: Aggregate the net income of all commercial banks in a country and divide this sum by their total assets.
The graph above shows three countries with contrasting fortunes. The most dramatic is Greece, whose banks have been struggling with bad debt. Then there’s Kenya, whose banks are doing surprisingly well, at least under this dimension. Finally, the United States is in the middle, with a noticeable dip during the financial crisis and lower returns since that crisis.
FRED has regional data that you can map using GeoFRED. And that’s exactly what we have in the map below: The world’s most profitable banks (darker colors) tend to be in the Global South, with Moldova, Belarus, and Iceland also doing very well.
How these graphs were created:The original post referenced an interactive map from our now discontinued GeoFRED site. The revised post provides a replacement map from FRED’s new mapping tool. To create FRED maps, go to the data series page in question and look for the green “VIEW MAP” button at the top right of the graph. See this post for instructions to edit a FRED map. Only series with a green map button can be mapped.
Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.
