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.
“Gross”60+ pages
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 In 30 years, the share of industrial materials has dropped by only 2 percentage points. Machinery’s share of the industrial pie has expanded by 8 percent- age points until now where it represents nearly two- fifths of industrial production. It comes as no surprise, however, that this growing share comes mostly at the expense of consumer nondurables. Industrial Materials. During the overall decline in the growth of the production of industrial materials (from 10.5 percent per year in 1951-55 to 2.6 percent per year in 1976-80) the relative growth positions of the branches in the group changed markedly. At first, construction materials, electric power, and nonferrous metals were the fastest growing branches in the industrial materials group as well as in all of industry. The dramatic growth of these three branches stemmed from the needs of postwar reconstruction and the rapid arms buildup during the Cold War. Chemicals and ferrous metals were also leading sec- tors in the early 1950s; fuels and wood, pulp, and paper products were at the bottom. In the last half of the decade, construction materials and electric power maintained their strong growth positions and were joined by chemicals. Meanwhile, both metals branches slipped into the slow growth group. Since the early 1960s, the chemicals branch has become the fastest growing branch in all industry, followed by electric power and a resurgent nonferrous metals branch. Meanwhile, construction materials, fuels, ferrous metals, and wood, pulp, and paper branches have continued to grow below the average for the industrial materials groups as a whole. The years 1976-80 were particularly disastrous for industrial materials. Growth in every branch of mate- rials fell to record lows. Chemicals lost its position as growth leader to the machinery branch. As an exam- ple of the widespread slowdown, electric power be- came the fastest growing component of industrial materials even though its growth was only two-thirds of the rate achieved from 1971 to 1975. Machinery. The machinery branch has been the fastest growing component of industrial production for most of the 1960-80 period and has been perhaps the most dynamic element in the entire economy. Machinery experienced a sharp decline in growth in the early 1960s along with the rest of industry. It rebounded during the rest of the decade and into the 1970s, when it too began to share in the current decline. During much of the postwar era, the growth of consumer durables output has outpaced producer durables—partly because it started from an extremely low base. The changing composition of consumer durables production has also helped to generate strong growth rates.” In the 1950s consumer durables pro- duction was so primitive that products such as kitchen utensils and small electrical appliances accounted for the bulk of the growth. In the 1960s larger appli- ances-——televisions, refrigerators, and washing ma- chines—began to drive consumer durables output. Early in the 1970s output of automobiles sold to consumers also began to grow rapidly. In the past few years, however, the growth of automotive production has tailed off, and consumer durables growth has approached that of producer durables. Some of this deceleration may reflect strained supplies of ferrous metals, which also support investment and the produc- tion of military hardware. Production of producer durables grew rapidly during the postwar boom—even accelerating for a long time—as capital stock throughout the economy was replenished and expanded. Practically every machin- ery component except that destined for consumer- related industries shared in the revival. Toward the end of the 1950s, growth of producer durables output dropped sharply across the board, except for agricul- tural machinery whose output expanded in the early 1960s. From the late 1960s until the beginning of the current period of slowdown, growth picked up slightly as investment expanded. During this period somewhat 2’ For an early discussion of the different phases of consumer durables output when the product composition changed significant- ly, see Marshall I. Goldman, “The Reluctant Consumer and Economic Fluctuations in the Soviet Union," Journal of Political Economy, (August 1965). pp. 366-380. 197 93-892 O — 82 — 1L4 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.