Database Tutorial: Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS): Home

Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) is a data research platform that provides single-point access to a wide range of datasets across multiple disciplines including finance, accounting, economics, and more. 

There are two ways to access WRDS: IP-based and account-based. IP-based access is recommended for quick research and immediate access to data, similar to how you access most other library databases. Accounts need to be requested and approved by WRDS representatives. 

WRDS representatives approve, renew, and disable user accounts. We strive to respond to your account request within 1 business day.

If you don't get a response for more than 3 business days, feel free to email us or contact WRDS support.

• Qin Lian, School of Business, qlian@pdx.edu
• Kerry Wu, Library, wuq@pdx.edu

PSU subscribes to a number of datasets and tools on WRDS. They are listed under "Subscriptions" on the landing page. Subscribed datasets may change without notice depending on faculty needs. Current subscriptions (last updated Feb, 2023):

• Bank Regulatory: accounting data for bank holding companies, commercial banks, savings banks, and savings and loans institutions.
• Beta Suite by WRDS: a powerful web-based tool allowing researchers to calculate stocks’ loading on various risk factors in a timely way. 
• Blockholders: standardized data for blockholders of 1,913 companies.
• CBOE Indexes: a key measure of market expectations of near-term volatility conveyed by S&P 500 stock index option prices.
• Compustat - Capital IQ: U.S. and Canadian fundamental and market information on active and inactive publicly held companies. Includes Execucomp..
• CRSP: security price, return, and volume data on stocks and indexes, as well as quarterly data on Mutual Funds.
• DMEF Academic Data: buying history for about 100,000 customers of nationally known catalog and non-profit database marketing businesses.
• Efficient Frontier by WRDS: Web-based tool that incorporates the customized inputs and calculates the corresponding Efficient Frontier, Optimal Complete Portfolio, Optimal Risky Portfolio as well as Minimum Variance Portfolio based on stock selection.
• European Short Data: encompasses all significant short positions reported by institutional investors under the EU236 Rule.
• Event Studies by WRDS: widely used by empirical researchers in finance, economics, accounting, law, and other business disciplines to analyze the market reaction to firm specific and market-wide events using either returns or volume around the time when event occurred.
• External Data Sources: A curated and inexhaustive list of external data outside of WRDS. WRDS does not support data from any of these sources, but offers this list as a helpful resource for researchers.
• Fama French & Liquidity Factors: constructed from the intersections of two portfolios formed on size, as measured by market equity (ME), and three portfolios using the ratio of book equity to market equity (BE/ME) as a proxy for value.
• Federal Judicial Center: data on all federal, civil, criminal, bankruptcy, and appellate court case information reported by the courts to the Administrative Office of the US Courts. Mid-1969 through the present.
• Federal Reserve Bank: foreign exchange rates and interest rates.
• Financial Ratios Suite: web based engine that delivers over 70 pre-calculated financial ratios for all U.S. companies across eight different categories (Valuation, Liquidity, Profitability, and etc).
• Historical SPDJI: Dow Jones Daily and Monthly.
• Insiders Data by WRDS: all insider trades after the SEC-mandated electronic disclosure--from June 30, 2003, to the present.
• Intraday Indicators by WRDS: daily stock market indicators obtained from NYSE TAQ data.
• ISS: Institutional Shareholder Services: Historical Directors data, Shareholder Proposals S&P 1500.
• Linking Suite by WRDS: allows our users to easily download link table between various heavily used databases on WRDS platform.
• Macro Finance Society: datasets from several influential papers broadly in the area of macro-finance
• MSCI ESG KLD STATS: positive and negative environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance indicators applied to a universe of publicly traded companies.
• MSRB: municipal securities transaction data.
• OTC Markets: closing quote, trade and security reference data for securities trading on the OTCQX, OTCQB, and OTC Pink Marketplaces.
• Pastor-Stambaugh and other Liquidity Factors: Pastor-Stambaugh, China, and Sadka Factors.
• Penn World Tables: national income accounts-type of variables converted to international prices.
• Peters and Taylor Total Q: an improved Tobin’s q - replacement cost of intangible capital - by Ryan Peters (Tulane) and Lucian A. Taylor (Wharton).
• Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX): includes Currency Options and Implied Volatility.
• Public Data: publicly available data from a variety of sources, such as BEA, BLS, and select Healthcare data. 
• Research Quotient: analyze and measure the effectiveness of a firm's R&D.
• SEC Order Execution: SEC-mandated disclosure of order execution statistics. 
• Subsidiary Data by WRDS: parent company and subsidiary relationships for companies filing with the SEC between 1995 and 2019
• Thomson/Refinitiv - SDC: Historical M&A datasets.
• TRACE: comprehensive, real-time access to corporate bond price information.
• US Patents by WRDS: patent-level data is directly parsed from USPTO's XML files. Researchers can use this database together with the patent valuation data contributed by Kogan et al.
• Venture Capital by WRDS: a collection of 6 different datasets from 5 different SEC filings. Examines topics include venture capital, private equity, or analyze the financials of some private companies.