WRDS - Wharton Research Data Service
Description: WRDS is a warehouse of financial, accounting, banking, economics, management, marketing, and public policy databases accessible through a single Web-based interface.
Harvard University graduate students and researchers can request a WRDS account for remote access.
HU undergraduates and MBA students can use it in the Financial Databases Room.
WRDS is maintained by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Its particular
strengths include deep archives of historical data, a common web interface for access to all
WRDS databases, and a variety of output file formats. File formats include fixed-format,
tab-delimited, comma-separated-values (csv), d-Base (dbf), SAS data sets and transport data sets,
and HTML tables. WRDS also permits logons, via SSH, to its UNIX servers for direct analysis of data
files with SAS, FORTRAN, or C.
WRDS provides access for HBS researchers only to those databases licensed explicitly by Harvard Business School. These do not include all WRDS databases. For a detailed breakdown of available data and date coverage, see the list of WRDS databases Harvard subscribes to at Harvard Subscriptions. Please contact Baker Research Services if you have questions about WRDS databases.
Basic Tips
Additional Guidance
- Introduction to Compustat
- Finding a Time Series of Financial Data in Compustat
- Insider Data from Thomson Financial/Spectrum
- Institutional Holdings Data from Thomson Financial/Spectrum
- Introduction to CRSP Stock Price Data
- Locating Historical S&P 500 Constituents
- WRDS Guides After login, click on Support in the top right of screen.
Vendor Database Support
Authorized Harvard students, faculty, and staff only may request vendor-provided help desk contact information for this database at the Stamps Reading Room Service Desk.
Access:
- Current HU faculty, students, and staff
- HU faculty, doctoral students, and staff researchers may request a WRDS account here.
- HU graduate, undergraduate, and HBS MBA students may use WRDS in the Financial Databases Room.
- HBS faculty, doctoral students, and staff may contact Baker Research Services.
Note: Use of WRDS is limited to academic and non-commercial research purposes. The right to access licensed databases and copyrighted material on the WRDS system is only for internal or academic research. You may not use data downloaded from WRDS for any commercial endeavor. In addition, you may not reveal, disclose, transfer or share username and password information with anyone. Additional restrictions apply. See WRDS Terms of Use.
Use of this database implies acceptance of our Copyright and Licensing Restrictions.