The most common entry point for researchers is the .
Empirical research in finance and accounting relies heavily on standardized, historical financial statement data. Compustat (originally from Standard & Poor’s, now part of S&P Global Market Intelligence) provides over 50 years of annual and quarterly fundamentals for publicly traded companies. The Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) platform acts as a unified delivery system, offering seamless access to Compustat alongside CRSP, OptionMetrics, IBES, and others. This paper serves both as a tutorial and a methodological reference for researchers who need to extract, clean, and merge WRDS Compustat data. wrds compustat
The platform is favored for its rigorous standardization and historical depth: The most common entry point for researchers is the
| Mnemonic | Description | Typical transformation | |----------|-------------|------------------------| | AT | Total assets | Book equity component | | LT | Total liabilities | For leverage | | CEQ | Common/ordinary equity | Book equity | | SALE | Net sales/turnover | Size proxy | | NI | Net income | Profitability | | EPSPX | Basic EPS (excl. extraordinary items) | Valuation ratios | | CSHO | Common shares outstanding | Market cap | | PRCC_F | Price close (fiscal year end) | For market-to-book | The Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) platform acts
: This is the primary resource for historical and current data on U.S. and Canadian public companies. It includes annual and quarterly data for over 24,000 active and 31,000 inactive companies.