Abstract
In this chapter, we witness that Soviet statistics authorities attempted to incorporate foreign trade earnings into Soviet national income, based on a unique formula. First, we show that they must have applied one of the well-known formulas for trading gains arising from changes in terms of trade to their specific accounting context. Then, we prove that this Soviet practice should have been corrected. Second, we reveal our estimate of Soviet foreign trade earnings, calculated using Soviet official data on foreign trade and input-output tables, and then we explore the implications of our estimate. We further look at how contemporary Russia has followed the Soviet statistical and institutional legacy of reporting foreign trade earnings in the national accounts.
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- 1.
CMEA Statistics Commission (1986) provided Soviet formula Eq. (10.5) for special foreign trade earnings with our Eq. (10.6). See also Treml et al. (1972) and Becker (1972). We have not yet found any official data on trade balance in the domestic prices for 1958. Therefore, we cannot say whether SFE was introduced for the official 1958 national income. However, SFE was likely to be incorporated into the Soviet national income for 1959 as is shown by Treml et al. (1972). Their estimate of special foreign trade earnings for 1959 is still appropriate because they employed official trade balances in both foreign trade prices and domestic prices. The official trade balance in foreign trade prices, which they employed, is the officially revised version in light of the denomination as well as the new fixed foreign exchange rate introduced on January 1, 1961.
- 2.
Neither Soviet official national income nor CIA’s GNP estimates considered net receipt from abroad. Soviet national income means net domestic income in the material sphere. Also, CIA’s GNP provides GDP estimates.
- 3.
We also calculated SFE∗∗, which is exactly based on the Soviet formula and official data on exports and imports, to verify Soviet accounts (see Table 10.1 displayed in the end of this chapter). We could not reach the exact figures of official SFE despite our use of official data on exports and imports in foreign trade prices and domestic prices. The similarity (correlation coefficient of 0.9984) between official SFE and this SFE∗∗ is just slightly greater than that between official SFE and SFE∗. Soviet authorities were likely to make further adjustments for official data on foreign trade revenues after their application of formula Eq. (10.5). Calculated SFE∗∗ for 1975, with large deficits in foreign trade prices \( \left({E}_f<{M}_f\right) \), is largely different from official SFE for the year. This suggests that Soviet Authorities might have occasionally employed \( {\varPi}_{\mathrm{e}} \) in place of \( {\varPi}_{\mathrm{m}} \) irrespective of the sign of trade balance in foreign trade prices because the use of \( {\varPi}_{\mathrm{e}} \) for 1975 makes the difference smaller.
- 4.
Kuboniwa (2016), for instance, focuses on the oil and gas industry’s foreign trade revenues. In contrast, this paper attempts to clarify the general characteristics of Soviet national accounting practice of macro and sectoral foreign trade revenues, exploring the origin and background of Soviet national accounting.
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Kuboniwa, M., Tabata, S., Nakamura, Y. (2019). Supplement: Soviet Foreign Trade Earnings Revisited. In: Kuboniwa, M., Nakamura, Y., Kumo, K., Shida, Y. (eds) Russian Economic Development over Three Centuries. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8429-5_10
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