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: 2019/07/19 C05210421 Table 10 Comparison of Structure of Output in Soviet and CIA Indexes, Percentage Shares 1950 1960 1970 1979 CIA index, 1970 prices (net output) Crops 55 46 46 46 Livestock 45 54 54 54 Total 100 100 100 100 CIA index, 1965 prices (gross output) Crops 58 46 46 43 Livestock 42 54 54 57 Total 100 100 100 I00 Soviet official index (gross output) Crops 56 51 51 48 Livestock 44 49 49 52 Total 100 I00 100 100 After 1960, the increased weight of the livestock sector causes the CIA index of gross output to grow faster than the Soviet index. The CIA measure of total gross agricultural output grows at 2.9 percent for_ the 1961-79 period as a whole, while the Soviet index grows at 2.4 percent. Crop output grew more slowly than livestock output during the period. If the CIA index had a more complete crop sample, thus decreas- ing the weight of the livestock sector, growth in gross output would slow. B. The FAO Index The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations publishes annually an index of net agricultural output for the world as a whole and for 149 individual countries.“' The output indexes are weighted with 1969-71 average producer prices of the given country and incorporate deductions for seed, feed, hatching eggs, and for waste. The FAO index for the USSR differs from the CIA index because changes in livestock inventories are excluded and because certain semiprocessed feeds such as bran and oilcake are deducted. Meat output in the FAO index, "' FAO Production Yearbook, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 1979, Vol. 33, p. 78. moreover, is registered in terms of liveweight. Sample coverage in our index and the FAO index is similar, especially for crops. In the livestock sector, however, the FAO index includes animal hides, cheese, dry milk, and other milk products. g Table 11 compares the CIA and FAO indexes of net Soviet agricultural output for those years covered by the FAO index.“ Although the CIA and FAO index- es have similar price weights, the average absolute percentage difference between the two indexes is 4 percent. When the change in livestock inventories is removed from the CIA index in 1970 prices, the CIA- FAO match is improved considerably; the direction of change becomes the same in each year; and the average difference falls to about 1 percent. Average annual rates of growth for the 1967-79 period as a whole differ slightly; removal of livestock inventory change eliminates the difference. In com- paring the 1971-76 period, the two indexes initially differ by a large amount. Again, however, the differ- ence is virtually eliminated when livestock inventory change is removed from the CIA index. Using growth rates to assess the similarity of these indexes is thus ambiguous. We place more weight on the average absolute percentage difference calculation that shows the FAO and reconstructed CIA indexes to be the best match achieved in any of our reconstructions. C. The USDA Index of Soviet Agricultural Output The USDA publishes indexes of agricultural produc- tion for Europe and the USSR.” The index for the USSR is weighted with 1969-71 average prices re- ceived by farmers in Western Europe converted to US dollars at official exchange rates. Production data are official Soviet output statistics. A constant 38-percent "’ The FAO revised the index in 1977. Data in earlier editions of the yearbook are not comparable with currently published data. Older versions of the index are weighted with 1961-65 average wheat-based price relatives. These weights are derived by express- ing the national producer prices for all commodities as a percentage of the national producer price of an equal weight of wheat. The older index included a greater number of processed products such as wine and refined sugar. "’ The current version of the index was published in May, 1981, after research for this paper was completed. Unpublished data » provided by USDA were used to compare the CIA and revised USDA indexes. The most recent USDA publication is lndices of Agricultural and Food Production for Europe and the USS R, ESCS, Statistical Bulletin no. 620, June 1979. 281 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.