WRDS (Wharton Research Data Service)

• What is WRDS?
  
  WRDS stands for Wharton Research Data Service. WRDS taps the most comprehensive sources of financial, accounting, economic, management, marketing, banking, and insurance data.
  
  The web interface offers point-and-click access to menus of variables for researching hundreds of firms simultaneously. Telnet access allows users to run existing C, FORTRAN, SAS, and a variety of statistical analysis software on WRDS with little or no modification. Entire databases can be downloaded for further analysis.
  

• How to access wrds via unix:
  
  There are some useful unix commands you need to know before you start to access to WRDS. OIT support staff can give you a tour on basic unix commands, and there are also some useful unix tutorials available on the web such as Unix Tutorial For Beginners.
  

Instructions for Accessing WRDS:

1. From windows, go to —> start —> run —> cmd
2. type: ssh WRDS.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU
3. at the login prompt, type in your login name and password
4. you will now be prompted with wrds(~)%
5. at this point you can use all the unix commands to change directories (cd), copy files (cp), get files (get or mget), remove (delete) files (rm or rmdir), list files (ls), change rights (chmod), or who (who is on), etc

You can use editors pico or vi create /edit files, or pine or elm to email.

When you want to quit wrds, type, "logout" to get back to the dos prompt.

You have 28 megs of storage space.

Beware: data sets are usually very big in size, so specify what you need.

Delete or remove files that are no longer needed, as you always can get them back later.

Additionally, files can be transferred with wrds using sftp.

• Login to wrds through the web (requires membership)