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.
“Gross”60+ pages
Approved for Release: 201 ~ The USDA index covers all years since 1950 and is also based on a large sample, but is weighted with average prices received by farmers in Western Europe during 1969-71. The latter diverge some- what from Soviet relative prices. ' The official Soviet index measures gross rather than net output, that is, it includes the value of crops and livestock products used in agricultural production as well as unknown quantities of waste. The CIA index is calculated on a gross basis for this comparison. The major difference between the CIA index on a gross basis and the Soviet index of gross agricultural output is the heavier weight placed on livestock production in the CIA index. In the Soviet index since 1960, crops and livestock have contributed equally to gross output, while in the CIA index during this period the livestock sector accounts for about 54 to 56 percent of gross output. Nevertheless, for the 1951-79 period as a whole, gross output in the Soviet and CIA indexes and net output in the CIA index all grow at about the same rate. The largest discrepancy in growth rates occurs in 1951-60, when the official index shows much more rapid growth than the CIA index of net output. When we adjust the CIA index to a gross basis and use the same price weights as are in the official Soviet index, the differences in growth narrow. Some of the discrepancy in the shares of crops and livestock in total output remains, however, be- cause we do not include the value of hay and green feed in crop output. Moreover, the CIA index omits a number of other crops included in the official Soviet index. II. Introduction.‘ The CIA index of agricultural production is a key element in CIA’s estimates of growth in Soviet GNP. Because about 16 percent of GNP originates in agriculture, the GNP measure must incorporate a reliable indicator of year-to-year changes in value added in agriculture—especially since weather causes ' The authors wish to thank John Carroll, Constance Kriieger, and Luba Richter for their assistance in the preparation of this paper. They are particularly indebted to Constance Krueger, whose meticulous research is largely responsible for the prices and the seeding rates used in construction of the index. 9/07/19 C05210421 wide fluctuations in agricultural output with substan- tial effect on annual changes in GNP. The USSR does not publish an index of value added in agricul- ture, however.’ We estimate value added by first deriving net agricultural output, that is, by reducing the value of gross production by the value of output consumed in the production process (seed and feed) and by waste. When the value of agriculture’s pur- chases from other sectors of the economy—-fuel, fertil- izer, spare parts, services, and the like—are subtract- ed from net output, the result is value added.’ This paper describes and evaluates the CIA index of net agricultural output. First, the derivation of the sample coverage and 1970 price weights is described. We then consider the validity of Soviet agricultural statistics on which the index is based. We present our estimates of seed, feed, and waste. After describing the construction of the index of net output, we apply sensitivity tests to assess the effects of different waste measures and price weights. Finally, we compare the structure and trends in the CIA index with those in three other indexes of Soviet agricultural output, including the official Soviet index of agricultural production. The details of our estimates and the sources for all data used in the index are presented in the appendixes. III. Construction of the Index A. Coverage of the Sample Estimates of net agricultural output are derived by aggregating the value of production of 28 individual crops, 10 livestock products and four items of live- stock inventory change using the 1970 average prices ’ The USSR publishes data on net output of agriculture in current prices in official national income statistics. This is not comparable to the Western definition of net output, however, because the Soviet series deducts all material inputs and not just those produced within agriculture. The Soviet national income series excludes depreci- ation, which is part of value added and includes the value of services purchased from outside the sector such as transportation, recreation, financial services, and the like which are not included in the Western definition of value added. Thus the Soviet series does vnot correspond exactly to our definition of value added, although it is probably closer in concept to value added than to net output as measured by our index. See CIA ER 78-10505, USSR: Toward a .Reconc|'lia!i0n of Marxist and Western Measures of National Income, October 1978. -‘ Estimates of purchases by agriculture from other sectors are discussed in the paper by John Pitzer, J EC, GNP, I950-80. 253 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.