Accessing Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS)

The Wharton Research Data Service (WRDS) is a web-based business data research service. It was developed at Wharton in 1993 to support our faculty's research and is now also used by many other institutions.

Register for a WRDS Account 

Full-Time Wharton Faculty, Staff, and Students

Full-time Faculty, Staff, and Wharton Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students can register for a WRDS account using the instructions below.  Student accounts close 2 years after registration; however, undergraduate students who are still actively affiliated with Penn/Wharton continue to have access during the terms in which they are enrolled. 

Use these directions to register for your WRDS account:

Other Account Types

These types of accounts are available for those who aren't full-time Wharton Faculty, Staff or students. 

  • Faculty accounts are available to all standing permanent faculty of member institutions.
    Please note: Lecturers are not eligible for faculty accounts but may apply for a visitor account.
  • Ph.D. accounts are available to all current Ph.D. candidates of member institutions.
  • Research accounts are available to graduate and undergraduate students performing research for a faculty member.
  • Staff accounts can only be requested by support personnel such as librarians and IT support staff of member institutions.
  • Visitor accounts are available to visiting faculty (non-permanent or part-time position, or those on a limited appointment).
  • Masters accounts are available to full-time masters students of member institutions.
  • Class accounts are registered by faculty and are used to host access for students in a class. Each WRDS Class Account should correspond to a specific group of students enrolled in that course for a given semester (Ex. Acct1010, Fnce2050). Students will enroll via a class code, provided by the faculty.

Questions? 

For login problems:

Students: contact Wharton Computing Student Support

Faculty: contact our Academic Representative (PennKey login required).

Staff: contact Administrative Support (PennKey login required). 

All other support:

Contact the WRDS Team.