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

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Table 5 (continued)
Soviet Industrial Production: Annual Rates of Growth
Percent
1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Industrial materials 6.8 5.7 4.8 5.5 5.3 5.7 3.6 2.9 2.8 1.0 2.5
Ferrous metals 5.5 3.8 3.3 4.0 4.2 4.4 2.7 0.7 2.2 0 —.3
Nonferrous metals 5.6 7.0 5.3 6.1 6.2 4.7 3.1 3.1 3.3 3.0 0.8
Fuels 5.5 4.8 4.7 4.9 4.9 5.9 3.7 4.2 3.1 3.0 2.3
Electric power 7.6 8.1 7.1 6.8 6.7 6.6 6.9 3.6 4.7 2.9 4.5
Chemicals and 11.3 8.1 6.7 9.0 9.5
petrochemicals
9.7 4.8 5.2 3.6 0.2 5.2
Wood, pulp, and 4.9 2.8 2.0 2.7 1.8
P313"
3.6 -0.1 0.5 —0.5 -2.9 2.8
Construction 8.5 6.7 5.2 6.0 4.7
materials
4.5 3.5 1.9 2.4 0.3 1.0
Total machinery 7.7 8.1 6.9 8.3 8.5 7.7 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.6 4.4
Including:
Producer durables 8.5 10.1 7.2 8.8 8.8 8.2 6.4 6.5 6.3 6.0 3.8
Consumer 10.2 12.6 13.8 13.0
durables
10.4 8.7 6.2 7.2 8.4 4.4 3.8
Consumer non- 6.0 3.4 2.1 1.7 5.5
durables
4.1 1.2 3.3 0.6 2.6 0.1
Light industry 5.9 4.5 0.7 2.8 2.7 2.9 4.2 2.5 2.6 1.8 2.0
Processed food 6.0 2.6 3.3 0.8 7.9 5.1 -1.1 4.0 -1.1 3.2 -1.4
Total industry 7.0 6.1 5.0 5.8 6.5 6.2 3.9 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.9
production remained fairly stable at around 6 percent,
although it trended slightly downward. During this
period of apparent industrial consolidation, machinery
production continued to drive overall industrial
growth. Growth in industrial materials and consumer
nondurables was generally slower and showed a stron-
ger downward slide.
While all signs suggest that the growth of industrial
production slowed considerably after the 1950s, the
extent and suddenness of the decline in the indexes
may be deceptive. One likely cause of the sudden
slowdown is the decline in the workweek from 46 to
41 hours by 1960. Thus, even with a 4.4-percent
increase in industrial employment in 1960, labor
inputs increased only 0.5 percent.” Considering that
3° Steven Rapawy, Estimates and Projections of the Labor Force
and Civilian Employment in the U.S.S.R. 1950 to I 990, Foreign
Economic Report Number 10, (Washington: U.S. Department of
Commerce, September 1976), p. 43. The data presented were
revised and updated in February 1980.
the Soviets historically have achieved growth by the
infusion of new inputs, it is not surprising that growth
slowed. A lesser possibility, is that statistical reporting
practices may have tightened after the 1950s to
reduce the inflation of reported output in later report-
ing periods."
The current phase of industrial slowdown began in the
mid-1970s when growth of machinery production
started to falter and machinery production could no
longer offset the gradual slowdown in the growth of
materials and nondurables. This slowdown reflects the
slowing growth in the industrial labor force, a con-
tinuing failure to assimilate new production capacity
" For a discussion of the padding of Soviet output statistics, see
Gregory Grossman, Soviet Statistics of Physical Output of Indus-
trial Commodities, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960),
and Alec Nove, “A Note on the Availability and Reliability of
Soviet Statistics,” in Morris Bornstein and Daniel R. Fusfeld, ed.,
The Soviet Economy: A Book of Readings (fourth edition;
I-Iomewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1974), pp. 237-245.
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