Breaking from page 17 to 18: "Finding that European firms display similar reductions in investment in science as American firms is not consistent with the idea

Breaking from page 17 to 18: "Finding that European firms display similar reductions in investment in science as American firms is not consistent with the idea that specific regulatory changes in American institutions drive the results of this paper." This is a clever way to get at what effect SOX and Bayh-Dole have had on private large-enterprise investment in science, but the evidence and argument are a bit opaque. What counts as a "European" vs. "US" firm? Most corporations are global at the scale of interest to this argument. US regulations might still have had an effect, even on "European" firms. Logically the best they can argue here is that the evidence is consistent with their hypothesis, not that the evidence is inconsistent with an alternative hypothesis that SOX and Bayh-Dole had an effect.