In a study comparing banks in two countries, a sample of 148 matched pairs of banks was formed. Each pair contained one bank from the Netherlands and one from Croatia. The pairings were made in such a way that the two members were as similar as possible in regard to such factors as size and age. The ratio of total loans outstanding to total assets was calculated for each of the banks. For this ratio, the sample mean difference (The Netherlands–Croatia) was 0.0504, and the sample standard deviation of the differences was 0.3053.