Business Faculty Research Databases: WRDS and More
Guide content supports the teaching and research goals of multiple departments on campus. Content represents a non-exhaustive selection of essential resources and tools for engaging a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints.
Research Databases for Business Faculty and Graduate Students
Below are a list of databases and data feeds for faculty research. If you have questions, please contact Business Librarians Kim Bloedel or Willow Fuchs.
Databases in WRDS / How to Register for a WRDS Account
Databases used primarily for faculty research (not in WRDS)
Coding tools and online learning
Visit the Business Library web site to search the catalog, find research guides, and to learn more about library services
Databases Available in WRDS
Access these datasets through your individual WRDS account.
No account? Follow these instructions to request an account.
- Audit AnalyticsProvides detailed research on over 20,000 public companies and more than 1,500 accounting firms in the US. Kent State University subscribes to two Audit Analytics products: Audit & Compliance and Corporate & Legal. Audit & Compliance. Additional information on the modules is available here: Audit & Compliance Datasheet and Corporate & Legal Datasheet.
- Bank Regulatory DatabaseThe Bank Regulatory Database contains five databases for regulated depository financial institutions. These databases provide accounting data for bank holding companies, commercial banks, savings banks, and savings and loans institutions. The source of the data comes from the required regulatory forms filed for supervising purposes
- Beta Suite by WRDSBeta Suite is a powerful web based tool allowing researchers to calculate stocks’ loading on various risk factors in a timely way. The tool is designed with flexibly in mind, capable of handling monthly, weekly and daily rolling regression on common set of market risk factors
- BlockholdersThe Blockholders dataset contains standardized data for blockholders of 1,913 companies. The data was cleaned from biases and mistakes usually observed in the standard source for this particular type of data. Blockholders' data is reported by firm for the period 1996-2001.
- Boardex-North America, UK, Europe, and Rest of the World DatasetsBoardEx includes profiles of business executives (including some demographics, education and career history, compensation, board and committee memberships, etc.), as well as the connections among them.
Types of companies and organizations covered:
Public – 57,658
Private – 1,706,188
Charities – 93,810
Government – 28,070
Armed Forces – 1,055
Medical – 1,026
Partnership – 34,648
Education – 48,943
Clubs – 126,820
The North America dataset and UK, Europe, and ROW dataset are separate subscriptions. - Capital IQ / Compustat North America, Global and Bank DataSubscription to North America, Global, and Bank databases. Includes fundamentals, stock prices and other market data going back to the 1980s, in addition to index prices and constituents.
Compustat provides more than 500 company-level fundamentals, including items such as Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and Flow of Funds. It also offers an even larger number of supplemental data items for more than 47,000 active and 37,000 inactive companies. - CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) Volatility IndexThe CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) Volatility Index® (VIX®) is a key measure of market expectations of near-term volatility conveyed by S&P 500 stock index option prices. The Vix Index was introduced in 1993 by Professor Robert E. Whaley of Duke University in his paper "Derivatives on Market Volatility: Hedging Tools Long Overdue," Journal of Derivatives 1 (Fall 1993), pp. 71-84. Since then, VIX has been considered by many to be the world's premier barometer of investor sentiment and market volatility.
- The Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP)Standard and derived security data available for the NYSE, AMEX and Nasdaq Stock Market. The option to extract CRSP data is offered as the CRSP/COMPUSTAT Merged Database.
This database consists of CRSP Link, mapping CRSP US stock data to a select bundles of COMPUSTAT data files. CRSP Link is the historical link between CRSP's unique identifier's PERMNO and PERMCO (securities and companies) and COMPUSTAT's unique identifier GVKEY (companies). - Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF) AcademicContains customer buying history for about 100,000 customers of nationally known catalog and non-profit database marketing businesses.
- Dow Jones Averages & Total Return IndexesCovers the Dow Jones Averages and the Dow Jones Total Return Indexes. The Dow Jones Averages are comprised of The Daily and Monthly Dow Jones Composite, as well as The Dow Jones Industrial, The Dow Jones Transportation, The Dow Jones Utility, the The Dow 10, and The Dow 5. The Total Return Indexes account for reinvested dividends, and, like all Dow Jones Total Market Indexes, cover 95% of the underlying market.
- Efficient Frontier by WRDSThis data analytics tool allows you to select portfolio composition and calculate corresponding Efficient Frontier, Optimal Complete Portfolio, Optimal Risky Portfolio.
- Event Study by WRDSUse this tool to measure the impact on the value of a firm resulting from an event — instant visualization of the effect of events on stock returns.
- EventusEventus performs event studies using data read directly from CRSP stock databases or pre-extracted from any source. The Eventus system includes utility programs to convert calendar dates to CRSP trading day numbers, convert CUSIP identifiers to CRSP permanent identification numbers, and extract event study cumulative or compounded abnormal returns for cross-sectional analysis.
- Fama-French Portfolios & Liquidity FactorsThe Fama-French Portfolios are 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 Reserve Bank ReportsThe Federal Reserve Bank Reports in WRDS contain three databases collected from Federal Reserve Banks: two of them come from Reports published from the Federal Reserve Board; the other one comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
- Financial Ratios Suite by WRDSWRDS Financial Ratio is a latest addition to the WRDS analytics platform. It’s a 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). Researchers can easily obtain both firm-level and industry-level ratios through point-and-click on the web query. This product can be used by researchers as a convenient tool to obtain firm-level and/or industry-level ratios as characteristics for controls in empirical research.
- I/B/E/S: Institutional Brokers Estimates ServiceThe Institutional Brokers Estimates System database includes historical earnings estimates for 35,000 companies around the globe. Forecast items include earnings, sales, revenue, dividends, net income, EBITDA, and more, with US coverage back to 1976 and International coverage back to 1987.
We have access to IBES academic Data. - I/B/E/S GuidanceI/B/E/S Guidance includes management's predictions about their own company (as opposed to the opinions of 3rd party analysts). It includes information previously available in the Company Issued Guidance (CIG) file in base I/B/E/S and information from the defunct First Call database.
- IRI Marketing Fact Book 1992-1997The Marketing Fact Book contains data on grocery store purchases from a representative sample of static qualifying U.S. panelist households to help make intelligent inferences for strategic planning and decision making. These purchases are continuously tracked across all UPC-coded brand-items in all categories. Data available from 1992-1997
- ISSMThe Institute for the Study of Security Markets (ISSM) database contains tick-by-tick data covering the NYSE and AMEX between 1983 and 1992, and NASDAQ between 1987 and 1992. Each year of data is divided into two files, one for trades and one for quotes. We subscribe to the following datasets within ISSM:
Consolidated Quotes
Consolidated Trades - ISS Voting AnalyticsCompany Vote Results (meeting results) covering Russell 3000 companies
- Macro Finance SocietyThe mission of the Macro Finance Society is to advance and disseminate high-quality research in Macro Finance, which is a broad area at the intersection of financial economics and macroeconomics. https://macrofinancesociety.org/
Offers: Commodity Trade and Currency Returns, Q Factors, Uncertainty, Cay data - MFLinksThe MFLINKS tables provide a reliable means to link CRSP Mutual Fund (MFDB) data that covers mutual fund performance, expenses, and related information to equity holdings data in the Thomson Reuters Mutual Fund Ownership data (formerly known as the CDA S12 data). Using MFLINKS allows a researcher to gather detail on holdings either for particular funds or fund families and groups of funds at specific points in time
- MSRB - Municipal Securities Rulemaking BoardThe Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s (MSRB) municipal
market trade data are available to support the study of recent and
historical municipal securities price trends, trade frequency and other
characteristics of municipal bond transactions. - OrbisOrbis contains information about European, US, Canadian, South and Central American, Japanese, Chinese, and African companies, as well as banks and insurance companies.
- OTC MarketsOTC Markets Group provides trade information and analysis for 10,000 U.S. and global securities traded over-the-counter. Our subscription offers access to:
End-of-Day Pricing - Penn World TablesThe Penn World Tables provides national income accounts-type of variables converted to international prices. The homogenization of national accounts to a common numeraire allows valid comparisons of income among countries.
- Peters and Taylor Total QExtract data on firms’ “Total q” ratio and the replacement cost of firms’ intangible capital.
• Total q = improved Tobin’s q proxy that includes intangible capital in the denominator
• Compustat firms, 1950 – 2015 - Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX)The Philadelphia Stock Exchange's United Currency Options Market (UCOM) offers choice of expiration date, strike (exercise) price, premium payment and any combination of 10 currencies currently available for a total of 100 possible currency pairs. We subscribe to the following datasets within PHLX:
Currency Options
Implied Volatility - PreqinIncludes PE data:
*Benchmarks
*Buyout Deals
*Cash Flow
*Fund Deals
*Fund Historic Performance
*Fund Terms
*Investors Details
*Investor Portfolio
*Manager Details
*Manager Investment Types
Includes Venture Capital Deals Details - Public DataPublic data on WRDS comes from a variety of sources in the public domain. WRDS converts the data into a consistent format and updates it on a regular basis. The databases are organized into content areas. Current data access:
- Research Quotient (Free to Academic institutions with current subscription to S&P Capital IQ Compustat)Firm’s R&D productivity. Created by Anne Marie Knott (Washington U. in St. Louis)
Research Quotient = percentage increase in revenue from a 1% increase in R&D. RQ is the output elasticity of R&D. RQ offers a universal, uniform, and reliable measure of a firm's R&D productivity. - SAS Visual AnalyticsSAS Visual Analytics provides a complete platform for analytics visualization, enabling you to identify patterns and relationships in data that weren’t initially evident. Interactive, self-service business intelligence and reporting capabilities are combined with out-of-the-box advanced analytics
- SDCHistorical financial transactions database, provides the most detailed financial transaction information available on new issues, M&A, bonds, syndicated loans, private equity, project finance, poison pills and many more.
- SEC Disclosure of Order ExecutionOn November 15, 2000, the SEC adopted new rules aimed at improving public disclosure of order execution and routing practices. As a result of Rule 11Ac1-5, market centers that trade national market system securities must make monthly, electronic disclosures of basic information concerning their quality of executions on a stock-by-stock basis, including how market orders of various sizes are executed relative to the public quotes and information about effective spreads - the spreads actually paid by investors whose orders are routed to a particular market center. In addition, market centers must disclose the extent to which they provide executions at prices better than the public quotes to investors using limit orders. Data is available on WRDS through 2005, and is no longer updated.
- Subsidiary Data by WRDSSubsidiary Data by WRDS contains parent company and subsidiary relationships for companies filing with the SEC between 1995 and 2019.
Data is parsed from exhibits attached to a variety of filing types (10-K, 10-Q, etc.), but relies primarily on Exhibit 21. Parsing was built on additions and modifications to the Corpwatch API, in order to allow for a broader scope of filings as well as the integration of existing WRDS SEC data. - SustainalyticsFrom the vendor: Sustainalytics’ ESG Ratings measure how well companies proactively manage the environmental, social and governance issues that are the most material to their business. The analytical framework addresses a broad range of macro-level ESG issues and trends that have a significant, and in some cases material, impact on industries and companies, creating both risks and opportunities for investors.
- Thomson Reuters/RefinitvCurrent access includes:
Mutual Fund Holdings (s12)
Lipper Hedge Fund Database (TASS)
Institutional (13f) Holdings - s34
WRDS TR Tools - TRACETRACE consolidates transaction data for all eligible corporate bonds - investment grade, high yield and convertible debt. As a result, individual investors and market professionals can access information on 100 percent of OTC activity representing over 99 percent of total U.S. corporate bond market activity in over 30,000 securities. We subscribe to the following datasets within TRACE:
- World Indices by WRDSCountry total return indices (with dividends). 40+ countries. Daily and monthly frequencies.
- WRDS SEC AnalyticsAccess over 12million aggregated SEC filings index records from a single file
• Search3.5+million text and html files for all 10-K, 10-Q,8-K, Proxy filings, 13D/G, 13F UPLOAD and CORRESP and CT ORDER
• 95,000+covered entities
• Comprehensive survivor bias-free historical linking table among Compustat’s GVKEY, historical CUSIP, and SEC’s CIK
• WRDS-generated sample programs available for individual modification
• WRDS SEC Readability and Sentiment data include 11 filing text characteristics, 8 readability measures, and 16 sentiment measures.
Coverage from 1994 - WRDS SEC MIDAS (Free with WRDS subscription)SEC offers Market Information Data and Analytics System (MIDAS) to promote better understanding of the U.S. equity markets and market structure. WRDS SEC MIDAS contains the Individual Security Metrics published by SEC MIDAS. The Individual Security Metrics provides market trading metrics for over 8,300 securities (stocks and exchange-traded portfolios).
How to Access WRDS
Do you already have a UI WRDS account? LOGIN TO WRDS
Do you need to register for a new UI WRDS account?
Step 1:Go to https://wrds-www.wharton.upenn.edu/register/
Step 2: Complete the Account Request form. Once your request is approved, you will receive an email with instructions for setting up a WRDS account with credentials.
Have you changed institutions and need to transfer an account?
If you need to transfer an account, go to this link:
https://wrds-www.wharton.upenn.edu/users/account-transfer/
Databases used primarily for faculty research (not in WRDS)
- Company Fundamentals Data from RefinitivCOB only FTP access--Contact Kim Bloedel for account credentials (kimberly-bloedel at uiowa.edu)
coverage of 88,000+ companies traded in over 120 countries. Annual US history dating back to 1981 and rest of the world history to 1990.
COB only
- Eikon with Datastreamfinancial markets database that provides access to real time market data, economic and business news, analytics and trading tools.
Eikon with Datastream is installed on three computers in Pappajohn Business Building. --two in the Business Library's Biz Hub and One in the College of Business Finance Lab.
Please contact Kim Bloedel for more information kimberly-bloedel@uiowa.edu - FactSet This link opens in a new windowPersonalized market data software for your PC or tablet, featuring real-time news and quotes, company and portfolio analysis, and rich commercial and proprietary content.
* Users must request an account using their uiowa.edu email: http://www.factset.com/survey/academic_id_request - iPoll databank This link opens in a new windowIPoll is a comprehensive, up-to-date source for US nationwide public opinion. A full-text retrieval system, the iPoll online database is organized at the question level, providing the tools to sift through nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys, 1935 to present. Surveys archived in the Roper Catalog were originally gathered by academic, commercial and media survey organizations such as Gallup Organization, Harris Interactive, Pew Research Associates, and many more.
Account Registration:
Users that have an email address with the extension @uiowa.edu can self-register by visiting: https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/ipoll/login although registration is no longer necessary to search or download when connected to the campus network.
Once users enter their email address, they should receive an activation email with a link to complete registration - Mergent Online This link opens in a new windowSource for global business and financial information. Provides news reports for "Moody's Manuals."
- Nielsen Data - Consumer Panel Data This link opens in a new windowThe Consumer Panel Data include longitudinal data beginning in 2004 with annual updates. These data track a panel of 40,000 - 60,000 US households and their purchases of fast-moving consumer goods from a wide range of retail outlets across all US markets.
Access is limited to tenure track faculty and their doctoral students.
Contact Kim Bloedel for access and more information on eligibility & policies. - Nielsen Data - Retail Scanner Data This link opens in a new windowRetail Scanner Data consist of weekly pricing, volume, and store environment information generated by point-of-sale systems from more than 90 participating retail chains across all US markets. Data begin in 2006 and include annual updates.
Access is limited to tenure track faculty and their doctoral students.
Contact Kim Bloedel for access and more information on eligibility & policies.
- NYSE Daily TAQ dataDaily TAQ provides access to historical data on trades and quotes for all issues traded on NYSE, Nasdaq and the regional exchanges. It contains a comprehensive history of daily activity from NYSE markets and the U.S. Consolidated Tape covering all U.S. Equities instruments.
Data Available: 2015-2019.
Limited to COB faculty - Real Time News Archive from RefinitivData feed: JSON; Access FTP for account info contact Kim Bloedel (kimberly-bloedel at uiowa.edu)
From the vendor:
• Reuters company news by region
• Reuters political/general/economic/C&E news
• All Reuters News
• Top third-party press wires
• All third-party news source
Archives available
• Back to 1996 for Reuters News
• Back to 2003 for other news sources
Metadata:
• Topic Codes: over 2,300 codes tagged to asset class, geography, events, industry, sector, etc.
• Product Codes: over 600 codes identifying desktop news products/ audiences
• Named Item Codes: over 2,000 codes identifying regularly recurring news reports
• Attributions: identifying the news source
• Reuters Instrument Codes (RIC): identifying equities, indices, FX rates and C&E facilities
• Refinitiv PermID: open organizational identifier
• Timestamps: normalized across all news sources, in UTC - Repurchase Deals data from LSEG-- Review global repurchases, from program announcements to each individual round of buybacks. Explore 48,000 repurchase programs captured, with over 30 years of history.
--includes include deal date of the repurchase program, initial authorisation date, date of which each authorisation in the program expires, total authorised value, company business description, the number of shares the company has repurchased, company industry, company nation, deal synopsis and more.
--Limited users. COB only Contact Kim Bloedel for access and more information on eligibility & policies.
- Orbis This link opens in a new windowOrbis contains information about European, US, Canadian, South and Central American, Japanese, Chinese, and African companies, as well as banks and insurance companies. Financials, peer comparison, corporate ownership and deals are included.
- PitchBook This link opens in a new windowResearch companies, deals, investors, funds, limited partners, advisors, founders and C-suite. Company data includes startups, VC and PE-backed companies, as well as mature private and public firms
FIRST TIME USERS: please create an account using your University of Iowa email address (@uiowa.edu) and a password of your account. - Preqin This link opens in a new windowProvides financial information and data on alternative asset markets. Our subscription includes Private Equity, Venture Capital, and ESG data. Access to PE and VC data is also provided through WRDS.
- S & P Market Intelligence Platform (PREVIOUSLY SNL Financial) This link opens in a new windowEach user must register and have their own login id and password (you must use your UI email address to register).
Covers industry-specific private and public companies worldwide. Provides standardized and as-reported financials, sector-specific templates, asset-level data, mapping and regulatory data, along with analytical tools to help with company assessment.
Select Article and Report Databases
- ABI/INFORM Global This link opens in a new windowSearch nearly 1,800 premier worldwide business periodicals for information on companies, computers, advertising, marketing, economics, personnel, finance, taxation, etc. Includes the Wall Street Journal full-text 1984-
- Business and Economics Portfolio This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text research reports from the Conference Board on the latest issues in business management and on United States and global economics, covering topics such as business outlook, leadership decisions, performance excellence, corporate governance, human resource management, productivity, economic indicators and analysis/forecasts of regional, national, and international economic conditions.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; Business Source Complete provides full text for scholarly business journals and other sources, including full text for peer-reviewed business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business. This database provides full text (PDF) for top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1922. This database is updated daily.
- EconLit This link opens in a new windowSource material in this database includes journal articles, essays, research papers, books, dissertations, book reviews, and working papers. Contains more than 735,000 records covering 1969-present. The subjects covered within EconLit include accounting, consumer economics, monetary policy, labor, marketing, demographics, modeling, economic theory, planning, and much more.
- Scopus This link opens in a new window[Help Searching Scopus]Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
- ProQuest Historical Annual Reports This link opens in a new windowOffers corporate annual reports for U.S. companies from 1884 to the present. Key data (financial, Fortune 500 ranking, industry classification, key people, geographic location, auditor, and related companies) are indexed in the citation and can be searched.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window[Help Searching Web of Science]A citation reference that includes Science Citation Index (1900-present), Social Science Citation Index (1900-present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Book Citation Index- Science (2005-present), Book Citation Index- Social Sciences & Humanities (2005-present), and Medline, and links to Journal Citation Reports and EndNote web version.
If you experience trouble connecting to WoS from off-campus, try clearing your cache or changing browsers. Firefox seems to be best for this.
Apps
- BrowZine Web This link opens in a new windowBrowZine works by organizing the articles found in Open Access and subscription databases, uniting them into complete journals, then arranging these journals on a common newsstand. The result is an easy and familiar way to browse, read and monitor scholarly journals across the disciplines.You can view in browser or download the app.
- MyLibro and Alexa: Alexa and Mobile AppsUse MyLibro to search the UI Libraries catalog on your mobile device or your Amazon Echo.
- New York Times (nytimes.com) This link opens in a new windowAccess to the nytimes.com. How to access the UI LIbraries subscription to the nytimes.com:
Register at http://AccessNYT.com and then use https://www.nytimes.com/ for access afterwards. You must register annually to keep access.
After registration you will be able to access the resource on any device. Access news articles from 1980 to the present. When accessing it on campus we have NO access to 1923-1980 but if you are off-campus you have 5 articles per day for 1923-1980 content (due to a lawsuit between publisher and vendor), all other years are available on and off campus.
Note: Our subscription does include the NYT Book Review; does not include the full size crossword puzzle.
- Business Library YouTube ChannelOffers brief demonstrations of databases by topic: Company information, Market and Industry databases, International business databases.
- Citation Management Programs (Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley)UI Libraries research guide ---designed to provide you with resources for citing sources in your paper. The University of Iowa Libraries offer support for EndNote.
Coding Tools and learning
- WRDS Coding Tool KitTopics include: Intro to JupyterHub Python, fetching data, storage and files.
- LinkedIn LearningOnline learning platform