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USSR: Measures of Economic Growth and Development, 1950-80

Central Intelligence Agency · 1982-12-08 · 399 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 18 …Power, United Nations International Comparisons Project, Phase I (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) ICP…
  • p. 19 …Oleg 1-Ioeffding, Soviet National Income and Product in 1928, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954…
  • p. 21 …In theory, the Soviets " Basic Principles of the System of Balances of the National Economy, United…
  • p. 50 …Lawrence Grose, Real Output Measurement in the United States National Income and Product Accounts, US Department…
  • p. 166 …The subsidies on housing, recreation, and the press were allocated to the housing, recreation, and other…
  • p. 181 …Duke University Press, 1972), pp. 155-194; with Wade Robertson, “Industrial Production in the USSR," Soviet…
  • p. 183 …tons, square meters, units of production, or some other convention- al measure. Examples of this type…
  • p. 210 …For example, the production of commodities pub- lished in physical units includes intraplant turnover, but the…
  • p. 222 …bulbs Units Narkhoz Machine tools sector ml Meta? cutting machine tools Rubles Narkhoz Forge presses sector…
  • p. 249 …Hardt, eds., Soviet Economic Statistics, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1972 Treml and Hardt U…
  • p. 261 …Khrushchev stat- ed that “figures for average yield (of grain) which you read in the press…
  • p. 308 …central press. 8 Because the official data have again been made available to the United States…
  • p. 320 …Power, United Nations International Comparisons Project, Phase I (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) ICP…
  • p. 321 …2 For details, see United Nations, Comparisons ofthe System of National Accounts and the System of…
  • p. 328 …Judging from a mass of anecdotal evidence from the Soviet press concerning the poor quality of…
  • p. 342 …Although the average size of a dwelling unit increased between 1950 and 1978-by 17 percent…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Table 6
Comparison of Official and CIA Measures of Soviet Per Capita Consumption
Indexes Average Annual
(l950= I00) Rates of Growth
_ (Percent)
195°
I955
I958
I960
19651
I965
'96,?
I967
noes
I269
I970
I9:/fl
I972
1973
Soviet Index
of Real Incomes
P____z.-_Z____l@-____...,____._C_,. ,_.___,,, ...__
-. _ ...-__ l9..5_l'.5_5_... T3 4-5
_ _. -__l7.3_..._____-C__-.____-.._._@.___*._C_my-,.g25§ié_9, ,,_;._._
. ._.__._J.37__ . . ._ L51
29 , T7
3.6
4.0 _
2.4-._ W- 12992.
I
. _ _l°?.____- ___.__..___J§§.___ ._____._______C__-g2@9_,_ . .,_,5~9
, . 223 _ "MC ._ _._____17'___ _ _____ ,l°7_l'75____.____ ,4-4
5:‘
2.9
if W236
’Wi2V52
I
189
,_____.. .____._ .,___._“J1?z_,_,,_____._.___ __, ._1.?_7.6-39,
§l._____.-__ . W- 2.19 C... __._ __._.__...-_l?9lfZ9. ,, 4-7
3.4 2.2
268 g_”____ A___2p9Z_____Z __m_________ig§);(>gg____g 4.2W I
73.8
297 W *7 ih W219’ , ___.__..__._._ ___,__'97_1;§°. __.3-9 2-5
_ i f Ni SIQ 226
-
ii
712127 _:W_.,m:i iQ*..~.l?.?§-‘£59. ,’:7,,,7Smfl§1QV i WW 323 3.5
,__ ._._,§?_ W ., 23?. ___
I974 ,.__. _.l52 W _ ___ __ ____ 2-iii ____., _, ____. __._____,,_. _
!975 , ,..__,3,.°§_______,__,_g_;_ ____,252__ _
I976. . . .§§‘L,__.. 357 _._
I977 f W. _____._ __-, _-__ Zéi t
5978” m___30sg__ ‘_ "Mg 269
I979’ WW W D __ m_276*_*
iééo 435 '
282
8 The index was put together from indexes for various periods given
in Narkhoz I965, p. 593; Narkhoz I967, p. 674; Narkhoz I970, p.
537; Narkhoz I975, p. 567; and Narkhoz I980, p. 380.
I’ Table A-2. Growth rates were calculated from unrounded data.
is deflated variously by a cost of living index given in
a Soviet source, the official index of state retail prices,
and an index of the change in average wages.
Table 7 compares the rates of growth given by the
Bergson, Chapman, and Becker indexes of total con-
sumption with the rates shown by the CIA index. As
can be observed, the CIA index increases more slowly
than the other Western indexes in all of the periods
compared. Many reasons could account for the diver-
gence—somewhat different concepts, different treat-
ment of some expenditure categories, data availabil-
ities, and others. Since none of the indexes has been
extended to recent years, there seems little point in
trying to measure the impact of these factors. Prob-
ably the main reason for the differences is that the
CIA index is largely an aggregation of physical
measures of consumption weighted by expenditures in
I970 prices, while the other Western indexes employ
earlier base-year weights and rely much more heavily
on deflated value measures, with the deflators differ-
ing little from the official retail price indexes pub-
lished by the Soviet government. Also, in constructing
the CIA index, use could be made of a considerably
larger body of data and information that has become
available in the past I5-20 years.
335
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.