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.
“Cooper”25 pages
Table 14 Comparison of Relative Prices in CIA and USDA Indexes of Soviet Agricultural Production *1 USDA Index CIA Index Food crops Wheat 100.0 100.0 Rye 86.0 112.6 Barley 89.5 78.6 Potatoes 89.5 g 110.1 Vegetables 278.9 158.3 Fruits 200.0 273.8 Technical crops Cotton 1358.1 538.8 Sunflower seed 193.0 181.6 Fiber flax 789.5 2275.7 Livestock products Beef and veal 2021.1 2382.5 Pork 1875.4 2186.4 Poultry 1856.1 2299.0 Milk 177.2 190.3 Eggs 1628.1 176.7 Wool 3877.2 4514.6 = Wheat= 100 The US gross output index includes seed and feed and is similar in other ways to the official Soviet index. In both indexes, the value of hay and harvested roughage (silage and forage) is included in crop production. Both include a large number of items with many more in the crop sample than in the livestock sample. The US index includes 111 individual crops and 29 items for the livestock sector. The US index covers 95 percent of total output, which is somewhat better coverage than our sample of Soviet agricultural pro- duction. The US and Soviet indexes also have in Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 common the use of different price weights for differ- ent periods. The US index uses 1957-59 average realized prices for years since 1955, 1947-49 prices for 1939-53, and 1935-39 prices for years before 1939.“° The Soviet index is considerably more frag- mented. In the period 1950-1979, it incorporates prices of 1951, 1956, 1958, 1965, and 1973. The two indexes are based on quite different sources of data, however. The US index is based on sample survey data supplemented by probability sampling. The So- viet output statistics are theoretically a literal enu- meration of all production in collective farms and state agricultural enterprises, with the private sector output based on sampling. In estimating net farm output in the United States, the USDA encounters some of the same difficulties involved in constructing the CIA index of Soviet output. First, in both cases it was impossible to make complete deductions for all seed produced and used within agriculture. The US index deducts only hay- seed, pasture seed, and cover crop seed. No deductions are made for other types of seed. We deduct only seed for grain and potatoes from Soviet gross output. In both indexes, data are insufficient to deduct the value of pasture feed from livestock production. Although the US index excludes intrasector use of agricultural commodities in estimating net output, no allowance is made for waste. Waste, however, is a much less serious problem in US statistics than in Soviet statistics. “‘ Because more than one set of price weights is used in the index, the series is spliced in 1940 and 1955 using calculations both in old and new prices for those years. 284 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.