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.
“V.M.”23 pages
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 Table 16 Comparison of Growth of Output in Two Sectors Using Fixed and Variable Price Weights Average Annual Percent 1960-66 1967-72 T“ If PM 1960-727“ Hoist transporTmachinery _ Variable price weights I 8.4 9.5 8.9 Fixed price weights b 8.7 6.9 7.8 Construction machinery Variable price weights B 8.9 8.8 8.8 Fixed price weights b 10.3 6.2 8.4 = These series are derived from the deflated final demand of the respective sector from the input-output tables of 1959, 1966, and I972. Because the CIA study has no price samples for 1966, the 1966 table in 1970 prices is used and then deflated to 1972 prices with the derived indexes. Deliveries to final demand in current prices are found in the following sources: 1959-Dimitri M. Gallik, Barry L. Kostinsky, and Vladimir G. Treml, Conversion of Soviet Input-Output Tables to Producers‘ Prices: The I 959 Reconstructed Table, FER-No. 6 (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Commerce, February 1975). l966—Treml and Guill, in Treml, Studies, pp. 197-281. I972-Gallik, Guill, Kostinsky, and Treml, “The 1972 Input- Output Table,” pp. 423-471. Prices: The price deflators are taken from CIA, An Analysis of the Behavior of Soviet Machinery Prices, I 960-73. '> These series are derived from the SPIOER quantity series for these two sectors. Much more has been written about the distortions afflicting both types of value series—-official ruble value series and GVO index series—the double-count- ing and disguised price inflation alluded to earlier. The effect of changes in double-counting is relatively easy to understand; the inflationary bias perhaps requires more discussion. Enterprise managers find it advantageous to boost prices to meet their performance targets. But it is difficult for managers to raise prices on standardized products since prices are controlled by the govern- ment. An exception is made, however, if the item can be considered a new product.” Then an enterprise can charge a new-product price, which is deliberately set higher than the price of the old product to recapture research and development costs of the new product. Later the temporary new-product price gives way for ” The new-product pricing phenomenon has been widely discussed in the literature. In particular see Abraham S. Becker, Ruble Price Levels; Joseph S. Berliner, The Innovation Decision in Soviet Industry; Padma Desai, “On Reconstructing Price, Output and Value-Added Indexes in Postwar Soviet Industry and Its Branches,” pp. 55-77; Gregory Grossman, “Price Control, Incen- tives and Innovation in the Soviet Economy," Alan Abouchar, ed., The Socialist Price Mechanism (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1977); and CIA, An Analysis of the Behavior of Soviet Machinery Prices, 1960-73. 213 93-892 0 - s2 - 15 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.