Research Guides: Business Data: Businesses

Small Business Credit Survey (startup & employer)
FRB of New York's Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS) asks small business owners to detail their current business climate, financial needs and recent credit experiences.
IRS Administrative Records
Restricted, adminstrative records at the firm level.
Kauffman Index
The Kauffman Index, from 1996-2014 and from 2015-2016, was among the most requested and far-reaching entrepreneurship research in the United States
Small Business Economic Trends
National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) Research Foundation has collected Small Business Economic Trends data with quarterly surveys since the 4th quarter of 1973 and monthly surveys since 1986. Survey respondents are drawn from NFIB’s membership. The report is released on the second Tuesday of each month.
Dun & Bradstreet Business Credit Reports
Dun & Bradstreet data is fee-based data, difficult to obtain.
Dun & Bradstreet's Small Business Health Index
Dun & Bradstreet's U.S. Economic Health Tracker is a monthly, multi-dimensional review of the health of the economy.
Dun & Bradstreet's Supplier Diversity & Socio-Economic Database
Provides fee-based access and
provides insight into more than 5.5 million diverse business listings in the U.S., as well as other key socio-economic classifications.
ADP Workforce Vitality Index
ADP Pay Insights uses payroll transactions data to provide a view on the wages and salaries of a cohort of almost 10 million employees over a 12-month period. historical data here: https://adp-ri-nrip-static.adp.com/artifacts/us_wage/20230201/ADP_PAY_history.zip?_ga=2.179225252.1280939020.1675282036-837214253.1675282035
ADP National Employment Report
The ADP National Employment Report is published monthly by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. An independent estimate of private-sector employment and pay, the report is based on data derived from ADP client payrolls.
eBay Research Data
Restricted data. See also Terapeak data https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling-tools/terapeak-research?id=4853#Research
eBay Developer APIs
eBay offers developers a wide range of RESTful and Traditional APIs. For new development, eBay strongly encourages the use of our RESTful APIs. A key benefit of REST is that it uses less bandwidth and supports multiple formats including plain text, XML, HTML, and JSON while SOAP only supports XML.

Databases

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides U.S. company data as well as international company data including U.S. company data for over 15,000 public companies and their SEC filings, U.S. annual reports, international company data for approximately 17,000 companies, international annual reports, FactSheets, and country information. Records may be retrieved by company name, product or service category, or tradename.
Abbreviation: mergenton
Vendor: Mergent
Subjects: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Reports
NetAdvantage (Standard & Poor's) This link opens in a new window
Find business, company and financial reports, plus investment, stock and mutual fund research. Provides financial content for public companies globally as well as hard-to-find private company information. Contains Company Stock Reports, Industry Surveys, Funds Reports, Stock Screener, Corporations, Executives and Directors Screener, Mutual Fund Screener, Corporate Bond Screener, and Compustat Excel Analytics.
Abbreviation: nasp
Vendor: Standard & Poor's
Subjects: Business, Communication, Economics, Finance, Hospitality
Type: E-Book Collections
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
PrivCo is a source for business and financial data on major privately-held companies, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies. PrivCo covers over 165,000 companies, including financial data, over 30,000 M&A transactions, and over 15,000 funding rounds. PrivCo also has over 10,000 investors, and advance search options by company, deal or investor, giving you the ability to generate fields of data within seconds based on criteria such as location, sub-industry, revenue and employee sizes, financial backing and more.

Note: create or sign in to your personal user account to access PrivCo.
Abbreviation: priv
Vendor: PrivCo
Subjects: Business, Finance
Type: Datasets / Statistics
Business Insights This link opens in a new window
Provides company profiles, company brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies, and industry news and information from 1980- (Business and Company Resource Center with PROMT, Newsletters, and Investext Plus).
Abbreviation: bcrc
Vendor: Gale
Coverage: 1980–Current
Subjects: Business, Communication, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Encyclopedias & Dictionaries, Historical / Primary Sources, Indexes / Catalogs, Newspapers and Newswires, Reports
Factiva (20 concurrent user limit) This link opens in a new window
Factiva.com, from Dow Jones, includes access to a wide range of information from newspapers, newswires, industry publications, websites, company reports, and more. The broad range of content provides both local insight and global perspective on business issues and current events – especially with regard to research requiring current information on companies, industries, and financial markets.
There is a 20 concurrent user limit.

Abbreviation: djfac
Vendor: Dow Jones & Company
Subjects: Business, Communication, Finance
Type: Newspapers and Newswires
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni offers a simple, intuitive research experience with flexible search options and tools to help guide students through common research tasks. Nexis Uni offers the same trusted content collection of more than 15,000 news, legal and business sources that students and librarians alike have come to expect from LexisNexis, while also providing a better research experience.
Content:
Briefs, Pleadings and Motions
Cases
Company and Financial
Directories
Law Reviews and Journals
Legal News
News
Statutes and Legislation

Abbreviation: nexis
Vendor: LexisNexis
Subjects: Business, Business Legal Studies, Communication, Hospitality, Law, Psychology, Public Administration and Policy, Sociology
Type: Directories, Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires, Proceedings

Nonprofits

Bankruptcies

UCLA-LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database
Datasets on large (assets over $100 million) public company bankruptcies filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts since 1979. Basic information on cases includes year filed, disposition, filing district, pre-filing assets, and sales. Create reports with data in 22 fields, including industry, disposition, filing district, refiling, and asset and employee size.
U.S Trustee Program - Department of Justice
Provides annual reports, bankruptcy statistics, Chapter 7 Trustee reports, USTP enforcement activity, debtor audits, and criminal referrals. Additional information covers statistical reports on bankruptcy filings, including means testing data from the Census Bureau, IRS, and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

IPOs & New Issues

SEC EDGAR Database
Edgar contains all the SEC forms going back to 1994 and in some cases to 1990.

Historical IPOS

SEC Edgar goes back to 1994. Most everything on internet and free is only available since 1994. S-1 forms are the main IPO document.
Library of Congress (and select libraries) have S-1 documents in microfiche format generally from 1978-1980s (FYI we have this fiche). It was produced by Q-Corporation. See our company Information in the Business History guide.
Disclosure SEC - SEC company filings - 1993-2005 CD-ROMS (FSU does not own, we might be able to borrow through ILL)
Listing Statements of the New York Stock Exchange by F.E. Fitch, Inc.
- Published/Created: 1884/88-1945
- There is an index covering the years up to 1945.
- Some are available via Hathi Trust but most we need to borrow through ILL
- This is a set that may not widely available and are the initial filings by a company. They are bound together - you will need an index.

Issuer summaries; security issues in the United States
Provides data on corporate new issues from July 23, 1933 to December 31, 1949 in two volumes. Prepared by counsel for defendants in United States v. Henry S. Morgan, et al., doing business as Morgan Stanley & Co.; et al. (Civil No. 43-757) United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Available from FLARE General Collection http://union.discover.flvc.org/permalink.jsp?00FL026177884

CEO Compensation Data

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides U.S. company data as well as international company data including U.S. company data for over 15,000 public companies and their SEC filings, U.S. annual reports, international company data for approximately 17,000 companies, international annual reports, FactSheets, and country information. Records may be retrieved by company name, product or service category, or tradename.
Abbreviation: mergenton
Vendor: Mergent
Subjects: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Reports

Forbes Magazine
Annual compensation survey generally called "America’s Highest Paid Chief Executives " generally found in the April or May issues of Forbes since 1970.

Wharton Research Data Service (WRDS)

ISS Incentive Lab
ISS Incentive Lab provides extensive Executive Compensation performance metrics, goals, and payout structure though the WRDS platform. (must fill out a request for a password trough the College of Business)

Databases

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides U.S. company data as well as international company data including U.S. company data for over 15,000 public companies and their SEC filings, U.S. annual reports, international company data for approximately 17,000 companies, international annual reports, FactSheets, and country information. Records may be retrieved by company name, product or service category, or tradename.
Abbreviation: mergenton
Vendor: Mergent
Subjects: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Reports
Mergent Archives This link opens in a new window
Mergent Archives is an online database providing you with access to a vast, indexed collection of corporate and industry related documents. This resource contains more than 180,000 documents covering over 100 countries and industries and provides access to more than 85 years of Annual Reports for companies across the globe through Mergent Archives' historical annual report collection dating back to as early as 1925.
Abbreviation: mergenta
Vendor: Mergent
Coverage: 1925–Current
Subjects: Business, Entrepreneurship, Finance
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Reports

Annual Reports-Corporate (AICPA)
Available through Nexis Uni. Annual Reports - Corporate includes portions of annual reports to shareholders and information extracted from SEC filings, including financial statements, footnotes, auditor's opinions, material incorporated by reference and management responsibility letters. 1972-1995

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni offers a simple, intuitive research experience with flexible search options and tools to help guide students through common research tasks. Nexis Uni offers the same trusted content collection of more than 15,000 news, legal and business sources that students and librarians alike have come to expect from LexisNexis, while also providing a better research experience.
Content:
Briefs, Pleadings and Motions
Cases
Company and Financial
Directories
Law Reviews and Journals
Legal News
News
Statutes and Legislation

Abbreviation: nexis
Vendor: LexisNexis
Subjects: Business, Business Legal Studies, Communication, Hospitality, Law, Psychology, Public Administration and Policy, Sociology
Type: Directories, Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires, Proceedings

EDGAR Search (SEC documents)
The EDGAR search tool lets you search for keywords and phrases in over 20 years of EDGAR filings, and filter by date, company, person, filing category, or location.

Historical Microfilm Resources

Annual Report to Shareholders, Fortune 500 (1979-81)
Mif 795
Guide to microfilm: Micr KF1449 .Z9 D58
Annual Reports of Latin America's Central Banks (1945-1988)
Mif 1826
Corporate & Industry Research Reports (CIRR)
These are investment analyst reports from 1984-1991.
Mif 1058
Guide to microfilm: Micr HG 4001 C53
SEC File: Corporate Annual Reports and U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission Documents (1978-1997))
Mif 861
Guide to microfilm: Micr HG4028 .B2 S42

Internet Resources

Guide to SEC Filings
Webpage from Thomson Research which describes what information is included with each SEC Filing.
Lehman Brothers Collection
Lehman Brothers Collection from the Harvard Business Library with the digitized deal books and other items, covering 1925 to 1986
Company Reports Online
Company Reports Online from the University of Pennsylvania Includes digitized reports from 1834 to 1968
Annual Reports at Academic Business Libraries
From Purdue University Libraries, contains historic annual reports. This shows you which universities should have a copy of the report, but doesn't necessarily give you access to the full-text report itself.

Textual Search of SEC Data

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides U.S. company data as well as international company data including U.S. company data for over 15,000 public companies and their SEC filings, U.S. annual reports, international company data for approximately 17,000 companies, international annual reports, FactSheets, and country information. Records may be retrieved by company name, product or service category, or tradename.
Abbreviation: mergenton
Vendor: Mergent
Subjects: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Reports

Often you will find that a company is a parent company or a subsidiary of a parent company. A subsidiary is a company whose parent is a majority shareholder. Both the parent and subsidiary are separate entities and independent of one another. Subsidiaries can be more well know than the parent company. For example, IMDB, the Internet movie database and Goodreads are subsidiaries of Amazon.

Databases

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni offers a simple, intuitive research experience with flexible search options and tools to help guide students through common research tasks. Nexis Uni offers the same trusted content collection of more than 15,000 news, legal and business sources that students and librarians alike have come to expect from LexisNexis, while also providing a better research experience.
Content:
Briefs, Pleadings and Motions
Cases
Company and Financial
Directories
Law Reviews and Journals
Legal News
News
Statutes and Legislation

Abbreviation: nexis
Vendor: LexisNexis
Subjects: Business, Business Legal Studies, Communication, Hospitality, Law, Psychology, Public Administration and Policy, Sociology
Type: Directories, Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires, Proceedings

CrocTail
CrocTail provides an interface for browsing information parsed from SEC filings about several hundred thousand U.S. publicly traded corporations and their foreign subsidiaries.

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides U.S. company data as well as international company data including U.S. company data for over 15,000 public companies and their SEC filings, U.S. annual reports, international company data for approximately 17,000 companies, international annual reports, FactSheets, and country information. Records may be retrieved by company name, product or service category, or tradename.
Abbreviation: mergenton
Vendor: Mergent
Subjects: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Reports
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
PrivCo is a source for business and financial data on major privately-held companies, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies. PrivCo covers over 165,000 companies, including financial data, over 30,000 M&A transactions, and over 15,000 funding rounds. PrivCo also has over 10,000 investors, and advance search options by company, deal or investor, giving you the ability to generate fields of data within seconds based on criteria such as location, sub-industry, revenue and employee sizes, financial backing and more.

Note: create or sign in to your personal user account to access PrivCo.
Abbreviation: priv
Vendor: PrivCo
Subjects: Business, Finance
Type: Datasets / Statistics

Wharton Research Data Service (WRDS)

Subsidiary Data by WRDS
WRDS Company Subsidiary database 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 (Croctail) API, in order to allow for a broader scope of filings as well as the integration of existing WRDS SEC data.