This comment makes three observations about Donohue and Levitt's paper on abortion and crime (Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(1) (2001), 249-275). First, there is a coding mistake in the concluding regressions, which identify abortion's effect on crime by comparing the experiences of different age cohorts within the same state and year. Second, correcting this error and using a more appropriate per capita specification for the crime variable generates much weaker results. Third, earlier tests in the paper, which exploit cross-state rather than withinstate variation, are not robust to allowing for differential state trends based on statewide crime rates that predate the period when abortion could have had a causal effect on crime.

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In this paper, we highlight the potential for linked employer-employee data to be used in entrepreneurship research, describing new data on business start-ups, their founders and early employees, and providing examples of how they can be used in entrepreneurship research. Linked employer-employee data provides a unique perspective on new business creation by combining information on the business, workforce, and individual. By combining data on both workers and firms, linked data can investigate many questions that owner-level or firm-level data cannot easily answer alone -such as composition of the workforce at start-ups and their role in explaining business dynamics, the flow of workers across new and established firms, and the employment paths of the business owners themselves.

This study uses worker-level employment data from the U.S. Census Bureau to test whether falling home prices affect a worker's propensity to take a job in a different metropolitan area from where he is currently located. Using a sample of workers from the American Community Survey, I employ a within-MSA-time estimation that compares homeowners to renters in their propensities to relocate for jobs according to data from the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics database. This strategy allows me to disentangle the influence of house prices from that of other time-varying, location-specific shocks. Estimates show that homeowners who have experienced declines in the nominal value of their home are approximately 20% less likely to take a new job in a location outside of the metropolitan area that they currently live and work in, relative to an equivalent renter. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that housing lockin has contributed to the decreased labor mobility of homeowners during the recent housing bust.