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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. 184 …Metalwares, metal structurals, light industry and processed food industry machinery and equipment, and mineral chemicals are…
  • p. 271 …meals, fish meal, and vitamin and mineral supplements as well as ground hay and other materials…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Table 13
Estimated Sample Coverage of SPIOER Indexes in 1972
Number of
Sectors in
Branch
Sectors
With a
Sample
Number of Minimum
Sector
Coverage
(percent)
Maximum
Sector
Coverage
(percgit)
Branch
Coverage a
(percent)
kll
Ferrous metals b 4 70.5 98.0 78.6
IQ
Nonferrous metals l 37.8 37.25: 29.1
O\
Fuels C 6 23.4 86.5 71.8
._. ,_-
Electric power 89.3 89.3 89.3
I\) >-
Machinery 27 8.3 100.0 67.4
\O
Chemicals and petrochemicals 10 34.8 100.0 42.2
U1
Wood, pulp, and paper 6 47.2 114.9 70.4
ZConstruction materials 8 14.3 118.5 65.7
\l
Light industry 8 16.2 1591 56.4
Processed food 10 10 17.0 155.1 55.1
Total industry 83 72 8.3 159.1 5<§.9
H Branch coverage is the sum of the value of sector samples expressed
as a percent of the branch GVO. In estimating SPIOER’s coverage
we have relied on two decision rules to compute shares. First, if the
sector is represented within the SPIOER sample by an official GVO
index, we assume that is equivalent to 100-percent coverage, since
the official production indexes presumably are based on full
coverage. See Abraham S. Becker, Ruble Price Levels. Second, if
the sample coverage computes to more than the sector GVO, we
assumed sector coverage is 100 percent for estimating branch and
industry coverage.
b The coke products sectors of the ferrous metals branch is described
by a proxy linked to the index for extraction of coking coal. In this
tabulation the sample share for this sector is treated as zero. If the
share were treated as complete coverage, branch coverage would
increase from 78.6 percent to 88.6 percent.
° Two sector samples in the fuels branch——those for peat and oil
shale—use an average unit value rather than a true unit price. In this
tabulation the sample share is taken as zero, an obvious understate-
ment. If the share were treated as 100 percent, the fuels branch
sample share would only increase from 71.8 percent to 74.0 percent.
industry (ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy are com-
bined). These GVOs are then “deflated” to constant
1972 rubles by the published Soviet indexes of enter-
prise wholesale prices. We realize that these indexes
are not an adequate gauge of price movements.
Nonetheless, analysis of their construction suggests
they are most deficient in the machinery branch and
less so elsewhere. Then revised branch indexes are
constructed from the SPIOER data by using gross
output weights in 1972 for the sectors, rather than
value-added weights, to build synthetic branch GVO
indexes in constant prices. Next, average annual rates
of growth for the periods 1960-66 and 1967-72 are
computed for both the deflated GVO branch indexes
from the input-output table and the SPIOER indexes
adjusted to a gross output basis.
209
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 above. 399 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.