We study accounting choice around firm-level collective agreement negotiations. Prior literature argues that managers make income-decreasing accounting choices to limit the concessions made to trade unions. However, empirical research to date fails to find evidence in support of this hypothesis. We expect that this lack of evidence is driven by the confounding effects of (i) methodological concerns and (ii) influential institutional factors. Using a sample of US firms that engage in firm-level labor bargaining during the period 1994-2007, we study whether managers act strategically in an attempt to reduce the proportion of firm wealth that is accrued to employees. Our findings suggest that managers take real rather than accounting actions to minimize payments. In particular, we find evidence consistent with (i) managerial strategic timing of the negotiation, and with (ii) increased conditional conservatism in the year of labor bargaining. We do not find evidence of earnings manipulation. This potentially signals that accounting choice around labor negotiations is informative rather than opportunistic.
Potential land–climate feedbacks in subarctic regions, where rapid warming is driving forest expansion into the tundra, may be mediated by differences in transpiration of different plant functional types. Here, we assess the environmental controls of overstorey transpiration and its relevance for ecosystem evapotranspiration in subarctic deciduous woodlands. We measured overstorey transpiration of mountain birch canopies and ecosystem evapotranspiration in two locations in northern Fennoscandia, having dense (Abisko) and sparse (Kevo) overstories. For Kevo, we also upscale chamber‐measured understorey evapotranspiration from shrubs and lichen using a detailed land cover map. Subdaily evaporative fluxes were not affected by soil moisture and showed similar controls by vapour pressure deficit and radiation across sites. At the daily timescale, increases in evaporative demand led to proportionally higher contributions of overstorey transpiration to ecosystem evapotranspiration. For the entire growing season, the overstorey transpired 33% of ecosystem evapotranspiration in Abisko and only 16% in Kevo. At this latter site, the understorey had a higher leaf area index and contributed more to ecosystem evapotranspiration compared with the overstorey birch canopy. In Abisko, growing season evapotranspiration was 27% higher than precipitation, consistent with a gradual soil moisture depletion over the summer. Our results show that overstorey canopy transpiration in subarctic deciduous woodlands is not the dominant evaporative flux. However, given the observed environmental sensitivity of evapotranspiration components, the role of deciduous trees in driving ecosystem evapotranspiration may increase with the predicted increases in tree cover and evaporative demand across subarctic regions.
Abstract. Tree transpiration considerably contributes to evaporative fluxes to the atmosphere in terrestrial ecosystems. Accurate transpiration quantification promotes the knowledge of water consumption by forests and could favour an adaptive forest management, especially in a global change context. Tree transpiration can be measured by a wide range of methods, and one of the valued ones is sap flow measurements. However, species-specific validations of techniques are required. Hence the objectives of this study were to validate transpiration rate measurements by the heat ratio method (HRM) in juvenile Aleppo pine trees (Pinus halepensis Mill.) by using the probe misalignment correction proposed by Larsen et al. (2020). This study simultaneously recorded the transpiration rate by tree sap flow following the HRM technique (THRM) and tree water losses by load cells (TOBS). These measurements were taken in combination with the environmental variables that control this process such as different vapour pressure deficit (VPD) ranges of air and the soil relative extractable water (REW). The results showed an accurate linear correspondence between TOBS and the transpiration rate measurements both without and with probe misalignment correction, THRM and THRM MIS, respectively, but interestingly underestimations at high transpiration rates were observed. However, underestimations were removed when applying probe misalignment correction. THRM MIS showed a good relation between the VPDxREW interaction. This study supports the notion that HRM offers accurate low values under a wide range of abiotic conditions, and is useful in isohydric species with low transpirations rates like Aleppo pine. To conclude, our results support the validation of both transpiration rate measurements by the THRM and probe misalignment correction in Aleppo pine under different environmental laboratory conditions.
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