Documents / FOIA release
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.
“Anderson”1 page
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 Gross National Product of the USSR, 1950-80 Introduction This paper presents estimates of the real growth of Soviet gross national product (GNP) since 1950 devel- oped by the Central Intelligence Agency and de- scribes the methodology used to construct those esti- mates. An earlier publication presented our estimates of Soviet GNP for a single base year, 1970, in both established and factor-cost prices.‘ This paper revises the 1970 GNP estimates based on information collect- ed since their publication and develops constant-price activity indexes to move each component of 1970 GNP over time.’ The result is an estimate of the growth of Soviet GNP in 1970 prices since 1950. Our Estimates in Perspective The Soviet GNP data presented here supplement an already large body of research. The accounting struc- ture closely follows the one pioneered by Professor Abram Bergson and further developed by scholars at the Rand Corporation.’ The result of their efforts is a set of Soviet GNP accounts for 1928, 1937, 1940, 1944, and 1948-66 in current rubles. Bergson also ‘ CIA, GNP I970. ’ Preliminary versions of the time-series data presented here were published in Herbert Block, “Soviet Economic Performance in a Global Context,” JEC, I979, vol. 1, pp. 135-140; and Rush V. Greenslade, “The Real Gross National Product of the U.S.S.R., 1950-1975,” JEC, I976, pp. 269-300. ’ The principal publications, in order of the years for which the GNP accounts were constructed are: Oleg 1-Ioeffding, Soviet National Income and Product in 1928, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954; Abram Bergson, Soviet National Income and Product in I937, Columbia University Press, New York, 1953; Abram Bergson and Hans I-Ieymann, Jr., Soviet National Income and Product, I 940-48, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954; Abram Bergson, Hans Heymann, Jr., and Oleg Hoeffding, Soviet National Income and Product, I928-I 948: Revised Data, Research Memorandum 2544, The Rand Corporation, Santa Moni- ca, Calif., 1960; Bergson, 1961;O1eg Hoeffding and Nancy Nimitz, Soviet National Income and Product, I949-I955, Research Memo- randum 2101, The Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, Ca1if., 1959; Nancy Nimitz, Soviet National Income and Product, I 956-I 958, Research Memorandum 3112-PR, The Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif, 1962; Becker, 1969; and Sally Anderson, Soviet National Income, I 964-I 966, in Established Prices, Research Memorandum 5705-PR, The Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., 1968. 11 devised the adjusted factor-cost standard (AFCS) in order to correct some of the distortions caused by the Soviet pricing system. He recalculated GNP using factor-cost prices, which are determined by imputing a uniform capital charge in place of profits, and eliminating the highly discriminatory turnover tax. In order to compute the real growth of Soviet GNP, Bergson developed price indexes to deflate the cur- rent-price vaiues of each end-use component of GNP. Becker similarly computed the real growth of Soviet GNP from 1958 to 1964 in both 1958 and 1964 factor-cost prices.‘ A number of other scholars have published estimates of Soviet GNP. Two estimates for early years are by Baran and Seton.’ The United Nations, Bornstein, and Cohn constructed GNP accounts for single years in the 1950s.‘ More closely related to this study are calculations of the real growth of Soviet GNP for extended time periods by Moorsteen and Powell, Kaplan, and Cohn.’ The latter three studies combine a ‘ Bergson, 1961, pt. 3; and Becker, 1969, ch. 6. ’ Paul A. Baran, “National Income and Product of the USSR in 1940,” Review of Economic Statistics 29, November 1947, pp. 226- 234; and Francis Seton, “The Social Accounts of the Soviet Union in 1934,” Review ofEconomics and Statistics 36, August 1954, pp. 290-308. ‘ “An Estimate of the National Accounts of the Soviet Union for 1955,” Economic Bulletin for Europe 9, United Nations, Economic Commission for Europe, May 1957, pp. 89-107; Morris Bornstein et al., “Soviet National Accounts for 1955,” Center for Russian Studies, The University of Michigan, 1961 (mimeographed); and Stanly Cohn, Derivation of I959 Value-Added Weights for Origi- nating Sectors of Soviet Gross National Product, Technical Paper RAC-TP-210, The Research Analysis Corporation, McLean, Va., 1966. ’ Richard Moorsteen and Raymond P. Powell, The Soviet Capital Stock, I 928-I 962, app. P, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, 111., 1966; Norman Kaplan, The Record of Soviet Economic Growth, Re- search Memorandum 6169, The Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, Ca1il'., 1969; and Stanly Cohn, “General Growth Performance of the Soviet Economy,“ Economic Performance and the Military Burden in the Soviet Union, US Congress, Joint Economic Com- mittee, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1970, pp. 9-17. 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 above. 399 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.