LibGuides: FIN 450 First-Year MBA Project Course: Home

About this page

We’ve done our best to select the most pertinent materials for these Course Resources pages, but if these are not helping with your topic/project, we encourage you to use the Schedule an Appointment link in the Profile box on this page.

Resources for this class

Statista This link opens in a new window
A data aggregation platform with statistics, facts, and market data in a wide range of topic areas.
Downloadable in JPG, XLS, and PPTP.
OECD Statistics This link opens in a new window
Includes data and metadata for OECD countries and selected non-member economies. Covering 23 topics, including Demography/Population, Economics, Globalization, National Accounts, etc.
IMF eLibrary Data This link opens in a new window
Unified access to all IMF economic/financial data & statistics for over 200 countries. Four databases in one: IFS, BOP, DOT, GFS.
Unified access to four IMF databases: International Financial Statistics, Balance of Payments Statistics, Direction of Trade Statistics, and Government Finance Statistics. Time series data is not always complete for every country.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) International Financial Statistics (IFS) This link opens in a new window
Downloadable financial and economic time series data for over 200 countries.
World Bank Open Data This link opens in a new window
free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.
UNdata This link opens in a new window
Retrieves data series from more than 30 United Nations and agency databases in one search interface.
UNdata allows you to search 30 United Nations and agency databases in one search interface. It contains a wide range of subjects including agriculture, crime, education, employment, energy, environment, health, HIV/AIDS, human development, industry, information and communication technology, national accounts, population, refugees, tourism, etc.
U.S. Census - Business and Industry This link opens in a new window
Includes data from the Economic Census and the Population Census that relates to business and industry.

Exploring Census Data
This is is the new platform to access demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

FRED - Federal Reserve Economic Data This link opens in a new window
A database contains more than 500,000 economic time series from 87 sources. It covers banking, CPI, exchange rates, GDP, interest rates, monetary aggregates, PPI, reserves and monetary base, U.S. trade and international transactions, and the U.S. financial data. The data can be viewed in graphic and in text form and is downloadable.

Our two main sources for company reports, including financial data:

OneSource This link opens in a new window
20M+ companies, US/int’l; financials, SWOT analysis, analyst reports, news articles. Search by region, sector, business size, more
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
Private company profiles and financial data (revenue, income statement, balance sheet, etc.), venture capital funding deals and investors, M&A, more.
Each user must create a login using a UR email address.
Yes – you CAN get financial data for private companies! Also very useful for creating lists of companies by geography, industry – with more granular detail than by NAICS or SIC, although those are available as well – rate of growth in revenue or employees, and whether or not the companies are PE/VC backed or not. Useful for career searches or entrepreneurial searches (who else makes this product? How many [x] are located within 50 miles of [place]? Etc.)

Two sources for ratio data (should you need it for this class):

Key Business Ratios (Dun & Bradstreet) This link opens in a new window
Contains financial ratios for industries and services, arranged by NAICS and SIC industry codes.
To find key ratios for the industry of your company: look up the company. 1) Click "Industry Classification" in the left hand panel. 2) click the most appropriate line of business in the tree structure. 3) Click "Key Stats & Ratios" in the left hand panel.
RMA eStatement Studies This link opens in a new window
Contains corporate financial ratios and other financial data aggregated by industry.

Morningstar Library Edition This link opens in a new window
Data for 20,000 mutual funds and stocks. Information, analysts reports, and more for mutual funds, stocks, ETFs, and markets.
VPN Required for off-campus access.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Contains articles on business, news, and companies worldwide, current and historical financial quotes, and company profiles.
Thomson Reuters This link opens in a new window
The Thomson Reuters databases cover Mutual Funds Holdings (CDA/Spectrum s12) and 13f Institutional Holdings (CDA/Spectrum s34). The Insiders Filings database contains transaction and holdings information filed with the SEC.
Special instructions: requires an account for use. Select "University of Rochester" from the institution list when registering.
Please contact Kathy Wu in Rush Rhees Library kathyw@library.rochester.edu.

OneSource This link opens in a new window
20M+ companies, US/int’l; financials, SWOT analysis, analyst reports, news articles. Search by region, sector, business size, more

Here are the three best databases for business articles.

DiscoverUR
DiscoverUR searches all library resources at once. This is a powerful, fast research tool that will help you discover a trove of useful resources across all University of Rochester Libraries.

ABI/INFORM Complete This link opens in a new window
Articles from academic business journals and business trade publications; plus industry reports, some market data, and company profiles from the Experian Commercial Risk database.
For alumni access, see link to Proquest Alumni Edition on the Alumni Library Gateway.
Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
Contains articles, company and industry reports, marketing reports, and country reports. Includes Harvard Business Review.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Contains articles on business, news, and companies worldwide, current and historical financial quotes, and company profiles.

Factiva Search Tips
Improve your search experience in Factiva with these useful tips. Really. You NEED to look at this, trust me!

But if what you're after are academic papers, these are the databases to try:

ProQuest Research, Newspapers & Business This link opens in a new window
Identifies articles in journals, magazines and newspapers, many full text. Includes ABI/Inform, Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, and Alt-PressWatch.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Journals from Elsevier Science and other publishers. Browse or search tables of contents, abstracts and full text of articles in all disciplines.
Includes the sciences, engineering, humanities, social sciences, and clinical medicine. Full text from 1995 on, except as indicated.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
For off-campus access to full text: Click Scholar Preferences and add Rochester as your Library Link. Be sure to Save Preferences.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) This link opens in a new window
Identifies working papers and articles in economics, accounting, legal studies and management, many with links to full text.

Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.

Almost all of the library's journal subscriptions are now online-only. You can access titles such as:

Financial Analysts Journal
Journal of Applied Corporate Finance
Journal of Financial Economics
Journal of International Money and Finance

(and many more)

Look up the name of any journal or newspaper to see if we have it online at DiscoverUR.

Gale Business Insights Handbook of Investment Research by Gale Group (Editor)
ISBN: 1414499272
Publication Date: 2013-06-14

Submit an ILL request
Need an item that we don’t have in the stacks? ILL works with libraries all over the world to get U of R students, faculty members, employees, and affiliates the materials they need. Submit your request now!

Advice for Enhancing Your Research Success

Here are a few tips to for researching:

The best business information is not free. However, the library does subscribe to numerous resources.
When using these databases, adjust your search terms if you're not getting the results you hoped for--try synonyms and scour article titles, abstracts, and subject headings in your search results for likely search terms to use. Sometimes a thesaurus or encyclopedia come in handy when brainstorming search terms.
Use double quotes to search multiple words as a phrase (e.g. "new age" finds these terms in exact order).
Use an asterisk to substitute for letters at the end of a word (e.g. crit* finds critic, criticism, critique, etc.).
If you can't find what you're looking for, schedule an appointment!

Business Librarian

Kathy Wu

Email Me

Contact:

585-273-5322
I am available for one-on-one virtual consultation through Zoom.

I also hold office hour on Mondays from 2 PM to 3 PM in the Gleason Hall Room 330. Walk-ins are welcome.

Zoom meeting only by appointment at https://rochester.zoom.us/my/kathywu

Subjects: Accounting, Business, Citing & Writing, Data & Statistics, Debate, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Government Information, Law, Management, Market & Industry Research, Marketing, Operations Management

Citation Managers

Citation managers like RefWorks, EndNote, Mendeley and Zotero help you track and organize your citations, so that when you're writing your paper, you can easily cite your sources. Citation managers also help you insert citations, create endnotes and bibliographies.

EndNote This link opens in a new window
Use this reference management tool to export and format references from databases. Learn more.
RefWorks This link opens in a new window
A web-based citation management tool. Export references from databases and format them for papers and bibliographies.

Mendeley
An easy-to-use reference manager - especially if you have a lot of pdfs that you want to organize.
Zotero
This is a great citation manager if you're likely to cite blogs, videos and webpages - captures the relevant information with one-click.
Reference Managers LibGuide
For more information and tutorials, please visit this specific Reference Managers LibGuide

FIN 450 First-Year MBA Project Course: Home

About this page

Resources for this class

Advice for Enhancing Your Research Success

Business Librarian

Citation Managers

Complete Business Resources Guide