We address the external effects on public sector efficiency measures acquired using Data Envelopment Analysis. We use the health care system in Russian regions in 2011 to evaluate modern approaches to accounting for external effects. We propose a promising method of correcting DEA efficiency measures. Despite the multiple advantages DEA offers, the usage of this approach carries with it a number of methodological difficulties. Accounting for multiple factors of efficiency calls for more complex methods, among which the most promising are DMU clustering and calculating local production possibility frontiers. Using regression models for estimate correction requires further study due to possible systematic errors during estimation. A mixture of data correction and DMU clustering together with multi-stage DEA seems most promising at the moment. Analyzing several stages of transforming society’s resources into social welfare will allow for picking out the weak points in a state agency’s work.
Over the years, Belarus has often faced difficult political and economic problems. With Russian or Western help, the Belarusian authorities have always managed to find a way out. The large scale of the structural economic crisis that engulfed Belarus in February 2011 has destabilized the political situation. The author estimates the political and economic consequences of the crisis in Belarus, and the possible role of external factors in solving the problem.