a rising tide of prosperity in the west seems to be lifting communities large and small, and that the many instances of small towns in decline that we all hear about are counterbalanced by other small towns growing healthily. another lesson is that population growth and the attendant economic growth in the west is not zero sum, and that small towns can still grow healthily while the metropolises of the west continue to attract people, partly from outside the region. i will return to the issue of how the economies of the urban and rural west differ, but the backdrop is that population data are promising for both. banking in the west now that i have outlined how the economy of the west relates to that of the rest of the united states, let me do the same for banking in the west. there is a lot to this topic, but my focus is banking as it is experienced at the retail level by households and small - and mediumsized businesses. again, i use the census bureau ’ s list of 13 states to define the west, and for a simpler comparison, and in honor of frank church, i will refer to the other 37 states as “ eastern ” even though they cover several regions. some of you are old enough to remember frank church, the u. s. senator from idaho - - a stanford grad and hero of mine when i was a teenager. - 7when he ran for president in 1976 and had some success in the primaries, he was challenged by the press that said his victories were limited to the west, and he replied “ what do you mean i can ’ t win an eastern state? i won nebraska! ” one dimension to how households and most businesses experience banking is the number of banks competing for their services, and one difference between the west and the east is that the west has fewer banks, even if we count them on a per capita basis. 9 in addition, banks in the west tend to be larger. one reason for the disparity in the average number and size of banks is that historically, a larger share of western states allowed statewide branching or had relatively limited branching restrictions, leading to the development of fewer and larger banks. 10 in metropolitan areas of the west, the average number of banks was 23 in 2017, compared to 27 in eastern metro areas. in rural counties of the west, customers had access to an average of 4. 6 banks in 2017, compared to 5. 4 banks in the east. in both urban and rural areas,

u. s. economy is strong, and the western economy is especially strong. while we don ’ t have state or regional numbers for this year, from 2015 through 2017, gdp, after adjusting for inflation, grew two to nearly three times as fast in the west as in the rest of the united states. since the great recession ended in 2010, real gdp has grown twice as fast in the west as in the northeast, about 50 percent faster than in the midwest, and a third faster than in the south. 6 but there is another distinction to the western economy, one that many in this audience know well, that brings these high - flying results down to earth. while the good times are typically very good in the west, the bad times are usually pretty bad, and that was certainly true during the great recession. from 2008 through 2010, the western economy contracted four times as much as the average for all of the united states. the same is true for per capita personal income, which contracted more sharply in the west than elsewhere, as job losses in the western region during the recession were worse than elsewhere. taking a longer perspective, however, even with the booms and the busts that have characterized the west for upwards of 200 years, the west is still the fastest growing region of the united states. since 2000, real gdp has grown twice as fast in the west as in the northeast and midwest, and about 30 percent faster than in the south. since 1988, the numbers are roughly the same. per capita personal income grew faster in the west during good years, statistics presented in this paragraph and the next two paragraphs are derived from the following website : “ comparative economic indicators : year vs. year analysis of growth and change, ” regional economic analysis project, https : / / united - states. reaproject. org / analysis / comparative - indicators / year _ vs _ year /. - 5outweighing the sharper losses during the recession and since 2000 has grown about 20 percent faster in the west than in the rest of the country. this picture of the west leading the nation in economic growth is also reflected in population, a key factor in that growth. from 2010 to 2017, the population of the west increased 7. 4 percent, compared to 5. 3 percent for the nation. 7 one might guess that this strong growth is primarily in cities, and in fact reflects the drain of population from smaller towns that is reported to be happening all over the united states.