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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.

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p. 4 …The volume contains a series of tables estimating the Soviet gross national product and its components…
p. 5 …quantified estimates of the value of Soviet gross national product (GNP), its rate of growth, its…
p. 6 …The Soviet indices of industrial and agricultural production are based on gross output rather than value…
p. 7 …For example, data on the amount of waste included in the gross output data of agricultural…
p. 8 …The measure shown represents “net output,” or gross output less products used by agriculture (seed and…
p. 9 …compendium on the Soviet eeonomV- “The Real Gross National Product of the U.S.S.R…
p. 10 …Contributions of Rush V. Greenslade ________ _________________-________ ____ __ 1x I. Gross National Product of the USSR, 1950—80.-______________________________ 3…
p. 12 …Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 Part I. GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT OF THE USSR, 1950-80 By…
p. 14 …Turnover Taxes as a Share of Gross Output in Industry, 1972 6. Subsidies on Agricultural Products…
p. 15 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Gross National Product of the Soviet Union in Established Prices, 39 by…
p. 16 …of Value Added in Agriculture B-8. Gross Output, Total Material Purchases, and Value Added in…
p. 17 …I Soviet Gross National Product in Established Priceskby End Use, I if I970 D-6. I…
p. 18 …An International Comparison, 1981 Gross National Product of the USSR: An International Comparison, 1982 Soviet Economic…
p. 19 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Gross National Product of the USSR, 1950-80 Introduction This paper presents…
p. 20 …Lee, “USSR Gross National Product in Established Prices, 1955-1975,” Jahrbuch der Wirtsc/la/I Osteuropas…
p. 27 …GNP for the Soviet Union and of gross domestic product (GDP) for selected OECD countries.” For…
p. 34 …Lee, “USSR Gross National Product," p. 413; and Becker, 1969, p. 128. difference between the growth…
p. 35 …conducted on a net rather than a gross basis. The enterprise is expected to be managed…
p. 41 …the business sector and are included in gross private business investment. The second US account shows…
p. 43 …On the other hand, the tax amounts to 30 percent of the gross output of the…
p. 44 …Turnover taxes were 30 and 56 percent of the gross outputs of the sugar and other…
p. 45 …The capital stock data used in this study are gross of depreciation. Approved for Release: 2019…
p. 47 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Table 8 Billion Rubles Gross National Product of the Soviet Union ' in…
p. 48 …The row and column sums are determined as each sector’s gross output less, respec- tively…
p. 49 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Table 10 Percent 1970 Soviet Gross National Product by End Use W…
p. 52 …Therefore, value added is computed as a residual—the difference between gross output and current material…
p. 53 …Therefore, if in- dexes of gross output and current inputs are both available, the gross output…
p. 56 …Each subbranch index measures the gross output of an I-O sector by summing the physical…
p. 57 …The material-input index is less desirable than a double deflation or gross output index, but…
p. 58 …2019/07/19 C05210421 Appendix A ' Soviet Gross National Product, 1950-80 This appendix presents the…
p. 59 …5 0.5 0.6 0.6 Gross national product 133.6 137.7 145.8…
p. 60 …4 ._ §l§5QfI.i2j§§5 1.0 Gross national product 232.3 245.3 254.5…
p. 61 …4 1.4 1.4 1.4 Gross national product 383.3 398.2 405.7…
p. 62 …0 5.2 3.7 2.7___ Gross national product 5.5 5.9 5.0…
p. 63 …8 7.6 5.8 4.0 Gross national product 3.1 5.9 5.2…
p. 64 …5.1 4.; 2.9 7.7“ ' Gross national product 5.6 3.8 -1.1…
p. 65 …2 3.4 0.8 1 4 Gross national product 3.9 1.9 7.3…
p. 66 …9 0.3 2.5 0.3 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
p. 67 …3 0.3 0.3 0.3 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
p. 68 …3 0.3 0.3 0.3 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
p. 69 …3 51.2 55.1 58.3 _ Gross national product 34.9 35.9 38.0…
p. 71 …7 134.1 135.2 137.1 Gross national product 100.0 103.9 105.9…
p. 72 …27.5 24.. ?6i5j_; Gross national product 133.6 137.7 145.8 153.4 160…
p. 73 …1 43.7 45.9 s9.7_‘ Gross national product 232.3 245.3 254.5…
p. 75 …4.5 1.1 5.9 -3.1 Gross national product 5.5 5.9 5…
p. 76 …0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Gross national product 3.1 5.9 5.2…
p. 77 …0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Gross national product 5.6 3.8 -1.1…
p. 78 …g 4.3 0.0 0.0 Gross national product 3.9 1.9 7.3…
p. 79 …1 28.1 29.1 30.2 Gross national product 741.7 752.2 784.0…
p. 80 …9 36.6 31.8 Ww3§’.98W Gross national product 1,083.8 1,124.6…
p. 81 …1 46.1 46.9 46.8 Gross national product 1,578.5 1,624.6…
p. 82 …3.2 7* 1.4 1.3 Gross national product 3.7 4.0 3.5…
p. 83 …1 14.0 13.8 13.5 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
p. 84 …8 13.4 13.3 7 17717 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
p. 85 …4 9.6 8.1 6.9 Gross national product 100.0 100.0 100.0…
p. 86 …31.7 65.3______s.9 g Gross national product 34.9 35.9 38.0…
p. 87 …9 98.2 103.1 89.1 Gross national product 60.6 64.0 66.4…
p. 88 …8 110.4 93.7 81.8 Gross national product 100.0 103.9 105.9…
p. 89 …Subtracting the deflated material pur- chases from the deflated gross output produces value added in constant…
p. 90 …The ratio of material inputs (gross output less NMP) to gross output declined slowly in this…

Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
VII
definition raises theoretical problems. The most important is that the Soviet
Union does not have market determined prices. Instead, it uses, for the most
part, centrally fixed prices which may be quite far removed from the values
that would obtain in a market-oriented economy. Market prices reflecting real
resource costs of each product are needed to derive theoretically correct infer-
ences about the real growth and distribution of GNP. An important. segment
of Part I is devoted to computing a set of alternative, factor-cost prices used
to replace Soviet prices. The latter are seriously distorted by taxes and sub-
sidies and by their failure to incorporate accurately the costs of land and re-
producible fixed assets. The factor-cost prices are intended to represent more
accurately the actual cost of resources used to produce each category of goods
and services.
The indices of the growth of GNP and its three major components are
computed as weighted averages of subcomponent indices. The weights are 1970
expenditures or value added as derived in the 1970 GNP accounts (Part I.
Appendix D). The subcomponent indices are developed from ph_vsical produc-
tion or consumption data. The index of industrial production is computed
from production data on over 300 products. These are grouped first into 10
branches of industry and then into an aggregate index. The index of agricul-
tural production. computed by combining production data for 452 types of crops
or livestock products. represents the value of all output less that used by
agriculture itself—primarily feed and seed. The index of consumption is
divided into three major categories of goods and eight categories of services.
Each category is further divided into individual products or services. The
index of GNP by sector of origin is formed by combining the indiccs of indus-
trial and agricultural production with similar indices for the remaining pro-
duction sectors——transportation, communications. domestic trade. and services.
Similarly. GNP by end use is computed by adding indices of investment and
other government expenditures, including most of defense outlays.
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The construction of the independent measures encountered numerous prob-
lems. Some are. universal to all aggregate measures of economic performance
and some are peculiar to the Soviet case. The treatment of quality change. for
example. is a universal problem. Most elements of the industrial index are
expressed in physical units such as tons or number of items. This procedure
may understate quality improvements over time. especially in machinery
products. On the other hand. official data, expressed in rubles or as index
numbers. are used where physical production data are not available. As indi-
cated above. these data clearly overstate growth. Because the biases in official
and physical data are offsetting, however. their use in combination should pro-
vide a truer measure of real growth. Similarly. the index of housing services
in the consumption index is based on the number of square meters of housing
without a quality adjustment. In this case. all evidence points to remarkably
little improvement in the quality of Soviet housing and there is likely not a
serious bias in the housing index.
Compiling consistent. data for the period 1950—80 presented a challenge.
Manv of the official data series are incomplete or published in differing formats.
requiring many interpolations and strong assumptions about relative prices.
Other data are not published at all or not on a regular basis. Instead. they
have to be culled from the specialized monograph and journal literature. For
example, data on the amount of waste included in the gross output data of
agricultural products are not published regularly or in a consistent framework.
[isms or 'l‘IlE Srnnnas
Just as aggregate measures of V\"este-rn economic performance are used
in many d1fi'erent applications. so the results of these studies can be employed
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.