USSR: Measures of Economic Growth and Development, 1950-80

Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
progressa, Moscow, Ekonomika, 1974, p. 40. Presum-
ably, the associated employment and earnings are
counted in the education sector. Also not included are
research and development activities carried out in the
laboratories and design organizations of individual
producing enterprises (Ibid, pp. 39-40). These expend-
itures are sizable, but are considered a part of the
production activity of each enterprise and are charged
to product costs.
Science is treated as a separate producing sector here
because employment and wage data are given sepa-
rately in Soviet statistics. In the US national accounts
by sector of origin, employment in comparable activi-
ties would be included mainly in the government,
services, and manufacturing sectors. There are no
data on the basis of which to distribute reported
Soviet employment in science among employment
categories comparable to US practice.
The science index is a weighted composite of indexes
of man-hour employment and material inputs. The
inclusion of a materials component in the index is
designed to capture some manufacturing type of
activity, mainly of prototypes or unique custom-built
equipment, that apparently takes place in research
institutes under branch ministries.
Weights. The weights of the man-hour employment
and material-input indexes are the estimated ruble
expenditures for both components in 1970. The
weight for the man-hour employment component
(5.296 billion rubles) is the sum of wages and social
security allowances (table D-7). The weight for the
material-input component (4.463 billion rubles) is
estimated in table B-18 as a part of the material-input
index.
Description of the Index. Man-Hour Employment.
The man-hour employment data, column 4 of table
B-19, are from Stephen Rapawy, Civilian Employ-
ment in the USSR: 1950 to I978, Washington, D. C.,
Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
1980, p. 23 for 1950-78 and extended to 1980 by the
same methodology.
109
Material Inputs. This is a deflated current-price
inclex. The derivation of the series in current prices is
shown in table B-18. Data in current prices are
available for 1960-72 in Soviet sources. Values for
other years are calculated as estimated shares of
“outlays on science from the state budget and other
sources,” which are published in the Narkhoz.
The expenditures on material inputs in current prices
are converted to 1970 prices by a weighted average of
wholesale price indexes for 10 branches of industry
(ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, electric power, machin-
ery, chemicals, wood products, construction materials,
light industry, and food industry). The weights to
combine the 10 indexes are obtained from the struc-
ture of purchases by science and administration in
1970 published by V. M. Rutgayzer, Resursy razvi-
tiya neproizvodstvenno sfery, Moscow, Mysl’, 1975, p.
168. Science purchases were about 86 percent of this
total. All of the price indexes except the one for
machinery are the official indexes published in the
Narkhoz (for example, Narkhoz I979, p. 164). The
official index for machinery is believed to understate
price increases badly in that branch. Accordingly, an
alternative price index estimated by Abraham Becker
for 1958-70 (“The Price Level of Soviet Machinery in
the 19605,” Soviet Studies 26, July 1974, pp. 363-
379) was used. Estimates for 1950-57 were obtained
by extrapolation on the basis of annual changes given
by the official index. Since 1970, a rate of increase of
1 percent annually was assumed, except for 1971 and
1973, when price reductions were assumed to offset
the general inflationary pressures from other sources.
The resulting aggregate price index and the derivation
of the total science index are shown in table B-19.
Credit and Insurance
Scope and Coverage. This sector includes the activi-
ties of the state bank (Gosbank), the construction bank
(Stroybank), the foreign trade bank, the system of
savings banks, and the insurance enterprises (Ukazan-
iya, p. 760).
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