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A fault tree analysis was used to estimate the number of refrigerant exposures of automotive service technicians and vehicle occupants in the United States. Exposures of service technicians can occur when service equipment or automotive air‐conditioning systems leak during servicing. The number of refrigerant exposures of service technicians was estimated to be 135,000 per year. Exposures of vehicle occupants can occur when refrigerant enters passenger compartments due to sudden leaks in air‐conditioning systems, leaks following servicing, or leaks caused by collisions. The total number of exposures of vehicle occupants was estimated to be 3,600 per year. The largest number of exposures of vehicle occupants was estimated for leaks caused by collisions, and the second largest number of exposures was estimated for leaks following servicing. Estimates used in the fault tree analysis were based on a survey of automotive air‐conditioning service shops, the best available data from the literature, and the engineering judgement of the authors and expert reviewers from the Society of Automotive Engineers Interior Climate Control Standards Committee. Exposure concentrations and durations were estimated and compared with toxicity data for refrigerants currently used in automotive air conditioners. Uncertainty was high for the estimated numbers of exposures, exposure concentrations, and exposure durations. Uncertainty could be reduced in the future by conducting more extensive surveys, measurements of refrigerant concentrations, and exposure monitoring. Nevertheless, the analysis indicated that the risk of exposure of service technicians and vehicle occupants is significant, and it is recommended that no refrigerant that is substantially more toxic than currently available substitutes be accepted for use in vehicle air‐conditioning systems, absent a means of mitigating exposure.

AbstractThis essay revisits the saga of Cold War era stealth development programs—classified but curiously public efforts to build airplanes that eluded radar detection—to explore how leaks work and the work leaks do when designing complex technical systems. Stealth programs are aging examples of an increasingly visible phenomenon: disclosures about large, closely guarded design, manufacturing, and administrative efforts before their official unveiling. Rather than simply policing the boundary between the secret and the public, in "big" design, in collective efforts to produce knowledge and things at scale, the article argues that leaks have a more subtle purpose: they help govern the uncertain terrain between knowing and knowing enough.

This dissertation is composed of three unrelated chapters, all of which are theoretical.In Chapter 1, co-authored with Kristóf Madarász, we develop a model in which people experience standard consumption utility as well as anticipatory utility, defined as the weighted sum of independently anticipated consumption "episodes" or "dimensions". The weights on these dimensions correspond to the attention that the person pays to the dimension. We assume attention on a dimension increases when expected consumption utility in the dimension differs from expected consumption utility under the default action or the prior belief. We show that the decision maker will pay more for information about dimensions with high expected consumption utility, and the willingness to pay may be negative when expected consumption utility is low. Additionally, when expected consumption utility is sufficiently low, but not when it is high, the decision maker will follow the default action even if it is suboptimal from a consumption standpoint. Furthermore, given the decision maker's current beliefs and preferences in a dimension, he will consume more in that dimension if he just received information. We then consider an advertisement application in which a monopolist decides whether to certifiably reveal the quality of various exogenous attributes of a good to a consumer who may choose to buy or not. There exists a sequential equilibrium for which the monopolist will not disclose information for attributes in which the consumer's utility with the highest quality good is sufficiently worse than not buying the good. Competition increases disclosure.The purpose of the Chapter 2 is to connect the literature on industrial self-regulation with the literature on political revolutions by showing that these seemingly different situations are, from a strategic perspective, different cases of the same basic game. I construct a simple two-player extensive game of complete information in which two players have preferences over the realization of a policy in one dimension. The first mover has a marginal cost to change the policy and the second player has a fixed cost. The first mover may placate the second mover from taking action or provoke the second mover to take action. In equilibrium, the second mover may benefit from having preferences that diverge more from the first player, and may benefit by having higher fixed costs. The equilibria are robust even when there are multiple first movers. Many applications are discussed and incorporated into the framework.In Chapter 3 I study the interaction where an informed party wants an uninformed party to believe that the state of the world is as high as possible. A fraction of the time the informed party exogenously "leaks" the true state of the world, and a fraction of the time the informed party can strategically choose a "decoy" that is indistinguishable from the exogenous leak. Despite preferences being similar to those in Crawford and Sobel (1982) with maximum bias, strategic senders do not babble. Instead they trade-off exaggeration for credibility. In equilibrium, all messages received below a threshold will be leaks and will be believed by the receiver, while all messages above the threshold will induce an identical expectation. The model applies to many applications. In particular we motivate the model with a political interpretation in which leaks represent transparency within a political administration.

How does information affect foreign policy? This dissertation explores the political dynamic of disclosure of classified information about national security and defense policy and its effects on foreign policymaking.In Chapter 1, I introduce the subsequent chapters by discussing their research questions.Chapter 2 confirms the prevalence of disclosure of classified information by anonymous sources in foreign policy reporting; 43.8 percent of all quotes in a corpus of news articles about drone strikes are attributed to anonymous individuals. Chapter 2 also shows that most of anonymously-sourced information is either neutral or supportive of the government's policies.Chapter 3 analyzes the puzzling credibility of disclosure of pro-government classified information (a "helpful leak"). I argue that credibility of unverifiable information leaked by anonymous sources stems from the perception that they may be leakers who reveal the truth and from the government's stronger incentive to punish leakers of true than false information. The mechanism hinges on a trade-off that the government faces between allowing positive information to leak irrespective of its veracity and the need to assert bureaucratic control by prosecuting unauthorized disclosures. I show that this trade-off causes the government to prosecute some, but not all, truthful leaks of pro-government information.Chapter 4 illustrates a dilemma for the government when punishing bureaucrats who disclose politically detrimental and classified information ("harmful leaks"). I argue the government's dilemma over bureaucratic and political incentives drives the government's sporadic punishment of harmful leaks. Although criminal punishment of harmful leakers establishes bureaucratic discipline, it deprives the government of maintaining plausible deniability of the damaging information. I show that this tradeoff between internal credibility and external credibility results in limited enforcement of secrecy.Chapter 5 examines a political consequence of harmful leaks. I argue that these harmful leakers can effect a change in public opinion about foreign policy when they reveal their own identity. The revelation strengthens the public's belief in the credibility of anti-government information provided by the leaker. This renders the government's policy proposal unpopular among the public.I conclude in Chapter 6.

Blowing the Whistle: Barriers to Federal Employees Making Disclosures -- Agency Transmittal Letter from the Chairman -- Credits -- Table of Contents -- Executive Summary -- Findings and Recommendations -- Introduction -- Purpose -- Survey Methodology -- Wrongdoing,Whistleblowing, andRetaliation Over Time -- Wrongdoing -- Whistleblowing -- Retaliation -- Barriers andMotivators forWhistleblowing -- Consequences of the Wrongdoing -- Management Reaction to the Report -- Current Perceptions of Agency Culture -- Whom to Tell About Wrongdoing and Preserving Anonymity -- Whom to Tell -- Preserving Anonymity -- Disclosures Matter -- Conclusion -- Appendix: 1992 and2010 MPS Data forWhistleblowing