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 distribution of Soviet GNP by sector of origin for a base year with constant-price activity indexes for each sector to estimate the real growth of Soviet GNP in the prices of the base year. The most recent study is by Lee, who constructed end-use accounts for 1955- 75.‘ This paper combines the sector-of-origin and end-use approaches to estimating the real growth of Soviet GNP. First, the GNP accounts are constructed for 1970 in established prices following the Bergson model. Second, the income side of the GNP account is rearranged by sector of origin. Third, GNP by sector of origin is converted to factor-cost prices, and the factor-cost correction is carried over to GNP by end use via an estimated 1970 input-output table. Fourth, indexes in 1970 prices are constructed for each sector- of-origin and end-use component. Finally, the compo- nent indexes are combined using the 1970 weights in factor-cost prices to estimate the real growth of Soviet GNP both by sector of origin and end use. The results are intended to measure changes in both production potential and actual resource allocation over time. Soviet National Income Data The Central Statistical Administration of the Soviet Union compiles its own measure of aggregate econom- ic activity, usually labeled net material product (NMP) in the West.’ The annual Soviet statistical handbook, Narkhoz I9—, provides data on total Soviet NMP, including five sector-of-origin and two end-use components. There are three principal reasons for compiling an independent index of Soviet econom- ic activity rather than accepting the Soviet measure: (1) there are important differences in coverage be- tween NMP and GNP, (2) we do not have sufficient knowledge of the methodological base of the NMP data, and (3) the Soviet data in purported constant prices are subject to major price distortions. ' W. T. Lee, “USSR Gross National Product in Established Prices, 1955-1975,” Jahrbuch der Wirtsc/la/I Osteuropas, vol. 8, 1979, pp. 399-429. _ ° The actual Soviet term (natsional 'niy dokhod) translates as “national income.” Since the same term is used in Western GNP accounting for a different concept, the Soviet term is referred to as net material product; it measures the net value added in the production of material goods. The main difference between NMP and GNP is that NMP does not include the value added in the produc- tion of most services, or a capital consumption allow- ance.'° To build an estimate of GNP from Soviet data, these two quantities, which represented about 25 percent of GNP in 1970, must be estimated in the desired detail. Historically, production of the exclud- ed services has grown more slowly than the other components of GNP and, therefore, this difference in coverage has imparted an upward bias to the growth of NMP. The omission of depreciation from NMP affects the growth rate if total depreciation grows more rapidly than the other elements of value added, or if the base- year distribution of depreciation among the sectors of origin differs markedly from the distribution of the remaining components of value added. The available data are not sufficient to infer the direction of the bias in the growth rate of NMP due to the omission of depreciation. The exclusion of depreciation does, of course, affect the absolute size of NMP. The Soviet Government regularly publishes annual data on total NMP produced in both current and constant prices, but the five sector-of-origin compo- nents are given only in current prices. Annual data are also published in current prices for “NMP used,” disaggregated into two end uses—“consumption” and “accumulation and other outlays”; similar data in constant prices have been published only for recent five-year periods. Even if suitable deflators could be devised, the published sectoral disaggregations are far too few to support systematic analysis of structural changes in the economy or to provide adequate data for economic modeling. The problems in using the NMP data are complicated by gaps in our knowledge about the methodology used to compile the data. The Soviets have never published '° See USSR' Toward a Reconciliation of Marxist and Western Measures of National Income, US Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., 1978, for a more detailed discussion of the differences between the GNP and NMP concepts. 12 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.