proxies for the date when countries reached a threshold of broad reforms including macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, trade opening, as well as the end of interventionist states such as communism. Wacziarg and Welch (2008) revise and update Sachs and Warner’s (1995) dates of liberalization through 2001. In principle, the liberalization date is the date after which all of the SachsWarner openness criteria are continuously met (however data limitations often imposed reliance on country case studies of trade policy). A country is classified as open if it displays none of the following characteristics: (1) average tariff rates of 40 percent of more; (2) nontariff barriers covering 40 percent or more of trade; (3) a black market exchange rate at least 20 percent lower than the official exchange rate; (4) a state monopoly on major exports; and (5) a socialist economic system. Countries that according to Wacziarg and Welch (2008) had liberalized their policies prior to 1960 or that had not liberalized by 2001 are excluded from our analysis.

Our structural reform index, POST, is a dummy variable that takes the value 1 every year after the date of liberalization and 0 otherwise. We call it a structural reform index because it proxies for the date when countries reached a threshold of broad reforms including macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, trade opening, as well as the end of interventionist states such as communism. For countries with multiple attempts at liberalization, the year of the final liberalization episode was used. Figure 1 presents a histogram of the number of countries liberalizing in each year. See Appendix Table 1 for a complete list of the countries included in the dataset and the year of liberalization from Wacziarg and Welch (2008).

Six labor-market outcomes are considered separately as dependent variables of interest. The **unemployment rate (UnempRate)** is defined as the percentage of the labor force that is without work but available for and seeking employment. The series was constructed using data from the IMF International Financial Statistics (IFS) (International Monetary Fund 2012), the World Bank World Development Indicators (WDI) (World Bank 2012) as well as the ILO Key Indicators of the Labor Market (KILM) (International Labor Organization 2012), the OECD Labor Force Statistics (LFS) (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 2012), and other regional agencies and country-specific sources. **Employment (Emp)** measured in millions, accessed from The Conference Board Total Economy Database (TED) (Conference Board 2012), includes employees, the selfemployed, unpaid family members that are economically engaged, apprentices, and the military. Employment series for countries not available from the TED were accessed from the World Bank WDI as total employment aged 15 and older. **Female employment (FemaleEmp)** measured in millions, accessed from the World Bank WDI, is total female employment aged 15 and older. The **wage index (WageIndex)** , accessed from the IMF IFS and deflated by the consumer price index accessed from the World Bank WDI, is an index of real wage earnings with 2005 as the base year equal to 100.

The **labor force participation rate (LFPRate)** , accessed from the World Bank WDI, is the labor force as a percentage of the working age population. The total labor force comprises people ages 15 and older who meet the International Labour Organization definition of the economically active population: all people who supply labor for the production of goods and services during a specified period. It includes both the employed and the unemployed. While national practices vary in the treatment of such groups as the armed forces and seasonal or part-time workers, in general the labor force includes the armed forces, the unemployed, and first-time job-seekers, but excludes homemakers 14