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. 183 …Biases in the Basic Data” for a fuller treatment of the new-product pricing phenomenon. It…
  • p. 253 …waste as it affects each category; a fuller discussion of the waste prob- lem can be…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Figure 6
SPIOER and Official Series: Comparison of Annual Growth Rates for Industry
Percent
l8
?\fi— \\ /\’ \ Z\ / \\_ I
Hi
mi
éi
a___
4-‘ \_\ ’_~/°\_/'_' ‘
2____ fl/'
-\
'__ Official“
i SPIOER difference
—" Differenccb
\ / \
\/\ \_.
§~_@--—_§Z_
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0 1950
3Narkh0z
bThis is the annual growth rate of the
official series less the SPIOER rates.
55 60 65 70 75 80
for the machinery and equipment component of in-
vestment since investment goods make up the major
portion of producer durables. The official series for
investment in machinery should be comprehensive
with each individual product valued at its own price
(unlike SPIOER’s index for producer durables pro-
duction, which is based on a sample).
Before performing the comparison the investment
series must be adjusted to a production basis. Machin-
ery does not appear in the investment data as soon as
it is produced. In addition, some allowance must be
made for foreign trade. Domestically produced ma-
chinery that is exported never appears in the invest-
ment data. Likewise, imported machinery appears in
the investment data, but is never reflected in the
production data.
Given the frequent delays in the construction indus-
try, we assume that on average production or imports
of machinery are reflected in investment after a year’s
lag.
Implied Production K
= Investment I +1 — Net Imports z
The investment series so adjusted is compared with
the SPIOER producer durables series in figure 7."
” Foreign trade in machinery and equipment is reported in
Vneshnyaya torgovlya SSSR in current foreign trade rubles; in
contrast the investment series is reported in constant estimate prices
of 1969. The foreign trade data are adjusted in the following way.
First, net imports of machinery and equipment are computed in
current foreign trade rubles. Second, a price index for imports is
derived by comparing the relative growth of two series for total
imports-—one in comparable prices and the other in current prices.
This implicit price index is used to deflate machinery imports, even
though it is based on all imports, including non-machinery pro-
ducts. Hence some possible error is introduced by this procedure
unless machinery prices have moved in the same pattern as all
import prices. Finally, net imports of machinery and equipment in
constant prices are adjusted to domestic prices by using a coeffi-
cient of 0.978 estimated by Vladimir Treml for 1972. Although the
assumptions used to make the foreign trade data comparable with
the investment data may be tenuous, machinery imports are a small
share of investment.
204
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.