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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. 54 …Rail, sea, inland- waterway, bus, and air transport are measured by passenger-kilometers; tram, trolleybus, and…
  • p. 57 …The freight transportation index is a weight- ed average of rail, sea, inland-waterway, oil-pipeline…
  • p. 98 …W Sea 0.263 per tkm Ibid, p. 1_5_1. Wig Inland water 0.418…
  • p. 99 …Mode Physical Measure Sources Ilail, inland water, Ton-kilometers sea, air, and oil pipeline Transport i…
  • p. 100 …Year (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Rail Sea Inland Water Oil Pipeline Truck (billion tkm) (billion…
  • p. 300 …fed Feed potatoes ~are priced at the sea'sonally low pro- curement-supply price (63 rubles…
  • p. 344 …It is a weighted composite of physical series for 9 modes of transport—rail, sea, river…
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
Transportation
Scope and Coverage
The transportation sector includes enterprises en-
gaged in the transportation of freight, passengers, and
associated activities by rail, sea, inland water, auto-
mobile, air, oil and gas pipeline, urban electric transit,
timber rafting, tug service, loading and unloading
services, and maintenance of highways (Ukazaniya,
pp. 742-745).
Our index is a composite of 16 physical series of
various types of freight and passenger transportation,
aggregated with 1970 revenue weights. The procedure
is similar to that used by N. M. Kaplan, Soviet
Transport and Communications Output Indexes,
1928-62, Research Memorandum 4264-PR and Sup-
plement, Santa Monica, Ca1if., the Rand Corporation,
1964 and 1965. Comparable results for 1950-63 given
by Kaplan and the index derived here are nearly
identical. The approach is also comparable to that
taken by Kendrick to obtain an output index for
transportation as part of an investigation of longrun
productivity trends in the United States (John W.
Kendrick, Postwar Productivity Trends in the United
States, New York, National Bureau of Economic
Research, 1973, pp. 186-193). The US GNP accounts
also use a gross output index, but one which is
primarily deflated current-price data.
The coverage of the index is incomplete. Omitted
entirely are timber rafting, road maintenance, tug
service, and activities of independent enterprises en-
gaged in loading and unloading; employment in such
omitted activities is estimated to have been about 10
percent of total transport employment in 1970.
A special problem arises with respect to freight
hauled by trucks. Two physical series are published in
the Narkhoz. One relates to common carriers only
and the other to total truck haulage in the economy.
Most of the trucking activity done by nontransport
enterprises is believed to be short-haul work in con-
nection with the current operations of the parent
enterprise. This type of activity is considered part of
the sectors to which the parent enterprise belongs in
the US accounts and, therefore, the physical series
relating to common carriers only is used here. This
results in a lower weight for the truck index, but a
higher growth rate.
Total transportation revenue is calculated as the sum
of freight and passenger revenue. Freight revenue is
calculated as the sum of the revenue estimated for
each of seven modes—rai1, sea, inland water, truck,
oil pipeline, air, and gas pipeline. The revenue for
each mode is calculated as the product of a physical
measure and a 1970 average revenue value. Passenger
revenue is calculated as the sum of the revenue
estimated for each of nine modes—rai1, sea, inland
water, bus, air, tram, trolley bus, subway, and taxi.
The passenger index is virtually the same as the
transportation component of the consumption index;
its construction is described by Schroeder and Denton
(JEC, Consumption). The only difference is that
business travel expenses are not deducted for the
sector-of-origin index.
Weights
The weights used to aggregate the seven freight
subindexes are 1970 average revenue rates per ton-
kilometer (tkm) (for gas pipelines, average revenue per
cubic meter of gas transported). The weights and their
sources are as follows:
Mode Average Rate
(kopecks)
Source
Rail 0.400 per ton-
kilometer (tkm)
Transport i svyaz ',
p. 1 1 1. W
Sea 0.263 per tkm Ibid, p. 1_5_1. Wig
Inland water 0.418 per tkm Ibid, p. 186. V___
Truck 7.05 per tkm Ibid, pp. 222, 251. G
Oil pipeline 0.123 per tkm Ibid, p. 203 with 28-
percent profit markup
added. _
flir 15.63 per tkm See text.
Gas pipeline 0.258 per cubic
meter
R. D. Margulov et a1,
Razvitiya gazovoy pro-
myshlennosti, Moscow,
Nedra, 1976, p. 11 with a
28-percent profit mark-
up added.
92
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.