International Accounting Databases on WRDS : Comparative Analysis

While multiple data vendors have claimed to offer a comprehensive international coverage of accounting and financial items for firms worldwide, there is a growing demand for better understanding of the differences across international databases. This paper compares several international accounting databases on WRDS to address this traditional obstacle confronting empirical researchers. I document important issues on the data coverage at the firm and country level, the sample overlap, and the discrepancies in coverage of various data items for FactSet Fundamentals, Compustat Global, and Bureau Van Dijk's international databases. The main conclusions are threefold: 1) Compustat Global features greater coverage of large companies in more developed countries and provides a wider range of accounting data items than any other databases; 2) BvD Osiris offers lesser variety of accounting data items, but it also contains a higher number of small firms from developing countries; 3) finally, FactSet Fundamentals Database provides a balance in the firm size and quantity of accounting items with a reasonable geographical coverage