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 The data clearly show that Soviet GNP grows more rapidly when measured in 1960 prices than in 1970 prices, but that the differences are not large. The use of 1976 prices appears to make little difference in the growth rate of GNP compared to 1970 prices.” Patterns in the GNP Residual In the 1970 GNP accounts for the Soviet Union, certain expenditures cannot be identified explicitly. These outlays not elsewhere classified (n.e.c.) com- prise a residual component within the base-year ac- counts. Conceptually, this category includes defense expenditures n.e.c., changes in strategic reserves, oth- er unidentified expenditures, and a statistical discrep- ancy. In addition, we have not been able to calculate constant-price indexes of inventory change or net exports; therefore, both of these quantities are also conceptually part of the outlays n.e.c. component in the time-series data. Outlays n.e.c. is calculated as a residual. Total GNP is derived from the sector-of- origin data. Then the sum of identified end-use components is subtracted from total GNP. The result- ing value is outlays n.e.c. Since total GNP should be the same regardless of whether it is calculated as the sum of the sector-of- origin or of the end-use components, the reliability of our GNP estimates can be assessed by examining the level and the trend in the residual component. The level of outlays n.e.c. should be well above zero. Although inventory change and net exports can be negative, the other elements of outlays n.e.c. (mainly some defense expenditures) should be sufficiently large to ensure that total outlays n.e.c. is positive. The reasonableness of the trend in the residual can be - checked by using some additional data and making some strong assumptions about defense expenditures. Data are available on a large share of inventory change in current prices, but a suitable deflator is not. The fluctuations in this component of outlays n.e.c., however, generally should be in the same direction in both constant and current prices. ’° This comparison may understate somewhat the sensitivity to the base year used because the same activity indexes were used with all three sets of weights. If the indexes were recalculated using 1960 or 1976 prices to combine their various subindexes, then the difference in the average GNP growth rate probably would be increased slightly. The Soviet foreign trade statistical handbook, Vnesh- nyaya torgovlya SSSR v I9—g0du, now publishes volume indexes of exports and imports. For the pur- pose of this exercise, we can assume that these indexes are accurate reflections of exports and imports in 1970 prices. Although total defense expenditures are estimated to have grown at 4 to 5 percent per year since 1965," the portion included in outlays n.e.c. may have increased at a quite different rate. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this exercise, it is assumed that all of the unidenti- fled expenditures in the base-year accounts are de- fense expenditures and that they have increased at a rate of 4.5 percent per year since 1965. The sum of inventory change in current prices and net exports and partial defense expenditures in constant prices provides a synthetic measure of outlays n.e.c. which should indicate whether the actual trend in outlays n.e.c. is plausible. The ruble values of the synthetic measure and the actual outlays n.e.c. com- ponent of end-use GNP are compared in figure 7. The year-to-year changes in the synthetic measure usually are in the same direction as changes in outlays n.e.c. until 1978; therefore, outlays n.e.c. appears to be a reasonable reflection of those expenditures that can- not be explicitly identified. The synthetic measure shows an upward trend while outlays n.e.c. shows little change prior to 1978. The difference in the trends can be interpreted as an indication of the existence of inflation. The imprecision in all of the data underlying this comparison, however, precludes any inference about the actual rate of inflation. After 1978, outlays n.e.c. decrease rapidly and be- come implausibly low to represent a large portion of defense expenditures plus inventory change and net exports. The cause of this decline is not known. Arithmetically, it could result from an underestimate of the growth of GNP or an overestimate of the growth of the other end-use components. " See footnote 24. 24 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.