Documents / FOIA release

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

Central Intelligence Agency · 1982-12-08 · 399 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Joint Committee Print, dated December 8, 1982, gathers studies that the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence prepared for the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress. It gives estimates of Soviet gross national product for 1950 to 1980, with indexes of industrial production, agricultural production and consumption, and explains the methods and data behind them. The foreword says official Soviet statistics inflate growth and that the CIA measures offer a more accurate picture. The document contains no UFO material.

  • p. 4 …The volume contains a series of tables estimating the Soviet gross national product and its components…
  • p. 5 …quantified estimates of the value of Soviet gross national product (GNP), its rate of growth, its…
  • p. 6 …The Soviet indices of industrial and agricultural production are based on gross output rather than value…
  • p. 7 …For example, data on the amount of waste included in the gross output data of agricultural…
  • p. 8 …The measure shown represents “net output,” or gross output less products used by agriculture (seed and…
  • p. 9 …compendium on the Soviet eeonomV- “The Real Gross National Product of the U.S.S.R…
  • p. 10 …Contributions of Rush V. Greenslade ________ _________________-________ ____ __ 1x I. Gross National Product of the USSR, 1950—80.-______________________________ 3…
  • p. 12 …Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 Part I. GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT OF THE USSR, 1950-80 By…
  • p. 14 …Turnover Taxes as a Share of Gross Output in Industry, 1972 6. Subsidies on Agricultural Products…
  • p. 15 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Gross National Product of the Soviet Union in Established Prices, 39 by…
  • p. 16 …of Value Added in Agriculture B-8. Gross Output, Total Material Purchases, and Value Added in…
  • p. 17 …I Soviet Gross National Product in Established Priceskby End Use, I if I970 D-6. I…
  • p. 18 …An International Comparison, 1981 Gross National Product of the USSR: An International Comparison, 1982 Soviet Economic…
  • p. 19 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Gross National Product of the USSR, 1950-80 Introduction This paper presents…
  • p. 20 …Lee, “USSR Gross National Product in Established Prices, 1955-1975,” Jahrbuch der Wirtsc/la/I Osteuropas…
  • p. 27 …GNP for the Soviet Union and of gross domestic product (GDP) for selected OECD countries.” For…
  • p. 34 …Lee, “USSR Gross National Product," p. 413; and Becker, 1969, p. 128. difference between the growth…
  • p. 35 …conducted on a net rather than a gross basis. The enterprise is expected to be managed…
  • p. 41 …the business sector and are included in gross private business investment. The second US account shows…
  • p. 43 …On the other hand, the tax amounts to 30 percent of the gross output of the…
  • p. 44 …Turnover taxes were 30 and 56 percent of the gross outputs of the sugar and other…
  • p. 45 …The capital stock data used in this study are gross of depreciation. Approved for Release: 2019…
  • p. 47 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Table 8 Billion Rubles Gross National Product of the Soviet Union ' in…
  • p. 48 …The row and column sums are determined as each sector’s gross output less, respec- tively…
  • p. 49 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Table 10 Percent 1970 Soviet Gross National Product by End Use W…
  • p. 52 …Therefore, value added is computed as a residual—the difference between gross output and current material…
  • p. 53 …Therefore, if in- dexes of gross output and current inputs are both available, the gross output…
  • p. 56 …Each subbranch index measures the gross output of an I-O sector by summing the physical…
  • p. 57 …The material-input index is less desirable than a double deflation or gross output index, but…
  • p. 58 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Appendix A ' Soviet Gross National Product, 1950-80 This appendix presents the…
  • p. 59 …5 0.5 0.6 0.6 Gross national product 133.6 137.7 145.8…
  • p. 60 …4 ._ §l§5QfI.i2j§§5 1.0 Gross national product 232.3 245.3 254.5…
  • p. 61 …4 1.4 1.4 1.4 Gross national product 383.3 398.2 405.7…
  • p. 62 …0 5.2 3.7 2.7___ Gross national product 5.5 5.9 5.0…
  • p. 63 …8 7.6 5.8 4.0 Gross national product 3.1 5.9 5.2…
  • p. 64 …5.1 4.; 2.9 7.7“ ' Gross national product 5.6 3.8 -1.1…
  • p. 65 …2 3.4 0.8 1 4 Gross national product 3.9 1.9 7.3…
  • p. 66 …9 0.3 2.5 0.3 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
  • p. 67 …3 0.3 0.3 0.3 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
  • p. 68 …3 0.3 0.3 0.3 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
  • p. 69 …3 51.2 55.1 58.3 _ Gross national product 34.9 35.9 38.0…
  • p. 71 …7 134.1 135.2 137.1 Gross national product 100.0 103.9 105.9…
  • p. 72 …27.5 24.. ?6i5j_; Gross national product 133.6 137.7 145.8 153.4 160…
  • p. 73 …1 43.7 45.9 s9.7_‘ Gross national product 232.3 245.3 254.5…
  • p. 75 …4.5 1.1 5.9 -3.1 Gross national product 5.5 5.9 5…
  • p. 76 …0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Gross national product 3.1 5.9 5.2…
  • p. 77 …0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Gross national product 5.6 3.8 -1.1…
  • p. 78 …g 4.3 0.0 0.0 Gross national product 3.9 1.9 7.3…
  • p. 79 …1 28.1 29.1 30.2 Gross national product 741.7 752.2 784.0…
  • p. 80 …9 36.6 31.8 Ww3§’.98W Gross national product 1,083.8 1,124.6…
  • p. 81 …1 46.1 46.9 46.8 Gross national product 1,578.5 1,624.6…
  • p. 82 …3.2 7* 1.4 1.3 Gross national product 3.7 4.0 3.5…
  • p. 83 …1 14.0 13.8 13.5 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
  • p. 84 …8 13.4 13.3 7 17717 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
  • p. 85 …4 9.6 8.1 6.9 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
  • p. 86 …31.7 65.3______s.9 g Gross national product 34.9 35.9 38.0…
  • p. 87 …9 98.2 103.1 89.1 Gross national product 60.6 64.0 66.4…
  • p. 88 …8 110.4 93.7 81.8 Gross national product 100.0 103.9 105.9…
  • p. 89 …Subtracting the deflated material pur- chases from the deflated gross output produces value added in constant…
  • p. 90 …The ratio of material inputs (gross output less NMP) to gross output declined slowly in this…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
production. The two sets of value-added weights for each machinery sector
are applied to the various sector output indexes to compute separate output
series for the two types of durables. These series are then combined with
estimated military durable production to arrive at an index for total
machinery output.
Several tests have been performed on the synthetic indexes for reasonable-
ness in terms of consistency with collateral information, the representative.-
ness of the sample, and biases in the basic data. Although, as expected, the
synthetic indicator of industrial progress shows slower growth than the
Soviet official index, the configurations of trends are similar in both
indexes. The consistency is best for the most recent period, where gross dis-
tortions in official data seem less than in the past. Trends in the most im-
portant segment of industrial outpu.t—producer durables—can be com-
pared to the key end-use component of investment in machinery and
equipment. When this comparison is made, the two series match closely.
The data are inadequate to test directly for the representativeness of the
sample—a crucial factor in establishing the legitimacy of any index. The
high share of the total production covered by the sample in l972—the year
of the most recent input-output table, which provides information on the
total volume of production—suggests that it is representative. The samples
for six of the 10 branches of industry represent more than 60 percent of to-
tal branch output in 1972. Coverage is poorest in nonferrous metals and
chemicals and petrochemicals.
In another test of the SPIOER’s accuracy, the industrial growth implied by
the 1959, 1966, and 1972 input-output tables was compared with the
growth registered by SPIOER indexes over the same periods. The SPIOER
samples generally grow more slowly. This could suggest some downward
bias in the synthetic indexes, but the discrepancy could also result from us-
ing the spurious official price indexes to deflate the input-output tables to
constant prices to arrive at “comparable” growth rates with the synthetic
indexes.
SPIOER’s reliance on gross output rather than value-added indexes could
be an important source of bias but does not seem to be. We in effect are as-
suming at the sector level that the ratio of value added to gross output has
remained constant. Analysis of the gross output and value-added compo-
nents of the input-output tables for 1959, 1966, and 1972 suggests that the
error resulting from this assumption is not serious.
The performance of SPIOER is least satisfactory in controlling the biases
in the basic data. Series that measure output in quantity terms almost
certainly understate the true growth rate because they fail to account for
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Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 399 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.