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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. 18 …Power, United Nations International Comparisons Project, Phase I (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) ICP…
  • p. 19 …Oleg 1-Ioeffding, Soviet National Income and Product in 1928, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954…
  • p. 21 …In theory, the Soviets " Basic Principles of the System of Balances of the National Economy, United…
  • p. 50 …Lawrence Grose, Real Output Measurement in the United States National Income and Product Accounts, US Department…
  • p. 166 …The subsidies on housing, recreation, and the press were allocated to the housing, recreation, and other…
  • p. 181 …Duke University Press, 1972), pp. 155-194; with Wade Robertson, “Industrial Production in the USSR," Soviet…
  • p. 183 …tons, square meters, units of production, or some other convention- al measure. Examples of this type…
  • p. 210 …For example, the production of commodities pub- lished in physical units includes intraplant turnover, but the…
  • p. 222 …bulbs Units Narkhoz Machine tools sector ml Meta? cutting machine tools Rubles Narkhoz Forge presses sector…
  • p. 249 …Hardt, eds., Soviet Economic Statistics, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1972 Treml and Hardt U…
  • p. 261 …Khrushchev stat- ed that “figures for average yield (of grain) which you read in the press…
  • p. 308 …central press. 8 Because the official data have again been made available to the United States…
  • p. 320 …Power, United Nations International Comparisons Project, Phase I (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) ICP…
  • p. 321 …2 For details, see United Nations, Comparisons ofthe System of National Accounts and the System of…
  • p. 328 …Judging from a mass of anecdotal evidence from the Soviet press concerning the poor quality of…
  • p. 342 …Although the average size of a dwelling unit increased between 1950 and 1978-by 17 percent…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Figure 7
Comparison of Production of Producer Durables and Adjusted Investment
Index: 1970=lO0
§0_
R5_
WE0_
W%_
6_O__
WZ]__
/ '1' Machinery investment
"— Producer durables
/
0 1950
lllllllllllllllllllllL_lllllllll
55 60 65 70 75 80
The close correspondence between the two series over
the postwar period suggests that the producer dura-
bles sample is representative of the total output of this
type of machinery. When examining growth rates
instead of indexes, as shown in the tabulation below,
the relationship between the two series does not
appear quite as close:
Average Annual Growth of Percent
Adiusted Machinery Investment
and Producer Durables
Adjusted
Machinery
Investment
SPIOER
Producer
Durables
1951-55
1956-60 10.0 12.4
1961-65 9.6 8.9
1966-70 7.7 7.8
1971-75 9.1 8.6
1976-79 5.2 6.3
1951-79 9.5 9.4
14.6 11.8
In some periods the two series diverge substantially in
terms of average annual rates of growth. Both series
grew at about the same rate from 1950 to 1979.
The machinery investment series may also be
susceptible to the effects of new-product pricing and
hence disguised inflation. Thus, the close relationship
could mean that the producer durables index has not
successfully removed all traces of disguised inflation
and has some upward bias.
Sample Representativeness
Sample Coverage. A statistical sample should at least
include enough items to ensure that the characteris-
tics of the sample approach those of the total. In
207
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.