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WRDS - Whar­ton Re­search Data Ser­vices

WRDS is an ac­cess portal to a range of data­bases with fin­an­cial, eco­nom­ic and com­pany-re­lated data.

Link to WRDS How to get access to WRDS

Facts

Coverage
Data from several financial and economic databases collected on one web platform. CBS has access to selected datasets.
Period
De­pend­ing on the type of data
Access
Campus + remote access - (registration needed for access)
Provider
Whar­ton Re­search Data Ser­vice
Subjects
Companies Investment Finance Key figure Economics ESG

Data­bases for fin­an­cial and eco­nom­ic re­search

What is WRDS?

WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services) is a research platform developed by The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The platform serves as a shared access point for various financial, economic and company databases used by researchers and students worldwide. WRDS provides access to standardised datasets, advanced search functions and the option to extract data for statistical analysis in Excel, Stata, R or Python.

The platform includes financial information, accounting data, banking data, economic indicators and management-related data. CBS does not have access to all databases and datasets offered via WRDS.

When is WRDS useful?

For CBS students and researchers, WRDS is particularly relevant when working with:

  • Empirical analyses within finance, accounting, investment, and corporate governance
  • Quantitative research that requires reliable and structured datasets
  • Long-term time series and comparisons between companies and markets.

How to get ac­cess to WRDS

CBS students and employees have to register to use WRDS data. Within a few weekdays, you will receive confirmation that you have access to WRDS.

On the WRDS website, fill the form:

  1. ”Subscriber”: Select Copenhagen Business School
  2. ”User Type”: Students select "Masters Student"
  3. Fill in name, CBS email, username etc.
  4. When you submit your registration, you also accept the ”Terms of Use”.

Two-factor authentication

WRDS uses two-factor authentication.
You can find more detailed information via these links:

Key data­bases in WRDS

Com­pustat
Com­pustat con­tains stand­ard­ised ac­count­ing and mar­ket data for more than 80,000 lis­ted com­pan­ies world­wide. Ideal for ana­lyses of fin­an­cial per­form­ance and com­par­is­ons across time and in­dustry. Provided by S&P Glob­al.
About Compustat
CRSP
The Cen­ter for Re­search in Se­cur­ity Prices is one of the most re­cog­nised data­bases for stock and mar­ket data, with his­tor­ic­al data from US ex­changes dat­ing back to 1926. Suit­able for stud­ies of re­turns, port­fo­li­os and in­vest­ment strategies.
About CRSP
MSCI ESG Dir­ect
Provides ac­cess to in-depth his­tor­ic­al ESG data for glob­al com­pan­ies, in­clud­ing en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact, so­cial con­di­tions and cor­por­ate gov­ernance. Used in ana­lyses of sus­tain­able fin­ance and re­spons­ible in­vest­ment.
About MSCI ESG Direct
Boar­dEx
De­tailed in­form­a­tion about board mem­bers, ex­ec­ut­ives and net­work re­la­tions in in­ter­na­tion­al com­pan­ies. Rel­ev­ant for stud­ies of man­age­ment struc­tures, cor­por­ate gov­ernance and so­cial net­works in the busi­ness com­munity.
About BoardEx

Help us­ing WRDS

We have cre­ated a guide to the con­tent and use of WRDS. Here you can also find con­tact in­form­a­tion for lib­rar­i­ans who can as­sist with fin­an­cial data­bases.

Libguide on WRDS