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 Figure 2 Annual Soviet GNP Growth Rates, Percent I Figure 3 Growth Rates of Soviet GNP and Agriculture Percent 12 Annual growth rate gt 4. i 2_ ___ Three-year moving average 40’ 30 Agriculture 20 W; GNP 0 . _fi— 0.. ‘2 1951 55 60 es. 10 75 so -20 Z -30 1951 S5 60 55 70 75 so economy—l4 percent of GNP produced in 1980 (measured in 1970 prices). As a result of geoclimatic limitations and cropping practices, Soviet agricultural output is subject to large variations." It is not at all unusual for agricultural output to fall from one year to the next, but such declines usually have been followed by a return to more normal weather and therefore a more normal level of output from agricul- ture in the following years. The recovery shows up as a very high growth rate of GNP in the year after a shortfall in agriculture, producing a distinct saw-tooth pattern to annual growth rates in GNP (figure 3). While agriculture is the major source of sharp annual swings in GNP growth, industry, with its large weight in total GNP (37 percent in 1980 in 1970 prices), appears to be the major source of the secular decline " Year-to-year variation in Soviet agricultural output is three times greater than in the United States. See Douglas B. Diamond and W. Lee Davis, “Comparative Growth in Output and Productivity in U.S. and U.S.S.R. Agriculture," JEC, I979, vol. 2, p. 20. in growth. Industrial growth, although generally ex- ceeding that of GNP, has slowed from the 8- to 12- percent-per-year range in the 1950s to the 3- to 4- percent-per-year range in the late 1970s (figure 4). The Evolving Structure of the Soviet Economy The structure of the Soviet economy has changed dramatically since 1950 (figure 5).’° By far the most important change has been the decline in the share of GNP produced in agriculture and the steady increase in the share produced in industry. Other notable trends are the growing importance of transportation and—surprisingly—the declining relative importance of the service sector. '° The percentage shares of GNP are calculated in 1970 factor-cost prices. A more accurate portrayal of changes in the structure of GNP would be obtained by computing the shares in current factor- cost prices. Unfortunately, those data are not currently available. 16 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.