> The paper in no way attempts to generalize the US other than that large companies typically track the sorts of data which would make similar studies possible.

In the section 3.1 Institutional Context, the paper explicitly compares the bank and the country to firms in the United States and the United States respectively over a handful of values. There's no explanation given for why the United States specifically was compared against nor is rationale given for the selection or exclusion of points of comparison. A reader has to conclude that they felt these were the relevant points of comparison because these were the things likely to affect their results.

This necessarily implies generalization. Any other interpretation can only make sense if we disbelieve their results or find their comparison criteria between firms and countries lacking.