Introduction RCTs are uncommon in international trade research but common in some fields, like development and labor economics Most recent BREAD conference featured 8 papers, 7 were RCTs In this talk, I'll present two RCTs conducted on export-oriented firms, with the following goals Why RCTs are a useful toolkit for research in international trade? What we can learn(and what we cannot hope to learn)? Practical and logistical challenges of implementing RCTs on firms will not discuss econometric/statistical issues in designing experiments See duflo et al 2007 for an extensive and highly useful discussion of these IssuesIntroduction • RCTs are uncommon in international trade research, but common in some fields, like development and labor economics • Most recent BREAD conference featured 8 papers, 7 were RCTs • In this talk, I’ll present two RCTs conducted on export-oriented firms, with the following goals: – Why RCTs are a useful toolkit for research in international trade? – What we can learn (and what we cannot hope to learn)? – Practical and logistical challenges of implementing RCTs on firms • (I will not discuss econometric/statistical issues in designing experiments. See Duflo et al 2007 for an extensive and highly useful discussion of these issues) 2