Accounting and Finance

Recommended databases to find accounting and finance literature, including journal and newspaper articles:

International

• Accounting, Tax & Banking Collection
  Covers key publications in accounting, auditing, financial management and banking.
• Business Source Premier
  Scholarly journal articles for accounting, finance, marketing, management, economics and other business disciplines.
• VALISE - Victorian Audit Library Information Service Database (Informit)
  An Australian index of articles on auditing and related business topics from 1988 onwards.
• ABI/INFORM
  In-depth coverage of a large number of business journals, magazines and newspapers.
• Google Scholar
  Search peer-reviewed journal articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports, with full text or access to content that the Library subscribes to.
• Factiva
  Global news, business news, company news and industry information content.
• ScienceDirect
  E-books and e-journals on accounting, management and business in general.

New Zealand

• Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre
  Full-text collection combining content from Australian, New Zealand and overseas magazines and newspapers including the New Zealand Journal of Applied Business Research.
• Newztext Plus
  Full text of some of New Zealand's news and business publications.

Full list of Accounting and Finance databases. For financial data, please see the Financial data tab.

Use these databases to find financial data:

New Zealand

• NZX Company Research
  New Zealand listed and delisted companies, annual reports, major shareholders, company and financial histories and share prices.
• NZX Annual Reports
  Full text of annual reports from 1980s onwards of companies listed on, and delisted from the New Zealand Stock Exchange.
• New Zealand Time Series
  Contains economic, financial and social statistics data drawn from Statistics New Zealand, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Treasury.

International

• Osiris (Bureau van Dijk)
  Detailed information on 70,000 publicly listed companies around the world; access to current and historical financial data, ratios, ownership, annual reports, news articles; financials are also standardized for cross-country comparisons.
• Mergent Online
  Comparative data for US and international listed companies including full-text annual reports, financials, news, profiles covering most countries.
• International Financial Statistics (IFS)
  Monthly, quarterly and annual time series of financial and macroeconomic data for most countries.
• EMED Emerging Asia
  Economic and financial data for 20 Asian countries, includes data for Money and Banking, Financial Markets, Interest & Foreign Exchange Rates.
• International Debt Statistics
  World Bank annual time series data from 1970 onwards on the movement of international capital flows to developing countries.
• Fitch Connect
  Fitch Connect is a credit risk and macro intelligence platform from Fitch Solutions providing credit research, credit ratings, macroeconomic and financial fundamental data, country risk research and indices, company news and analysis on emerging and key global markets.

Specialised data

The following databases have restricted access. For details concerning access, click on the name of the database.

• Datastream
  Key international data on equities, company financials, stock market indices, trusts, warrants, bonds, interest rates, exchange rates, commodities, and macroeconomic data.
• Eikon
  Contains a wide range of financial data such as equities, equity indices, bonds, bond indices, futures, warrants, options, and fundamental company accounts data. It also provides Datastream and IBES data.
• SDC Platinum
  Detailed data on mergers and acquisitions, including target and acquirors, nations, SIC, deal types and descriptions, and share price effects.
• Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS)
  A collection of major financial databases. The University of Auckland Library subscription includes:
  • Audit Analytics
    Covers auditor firms, auditor changes, fees, opinions, SOX 302 disclosure controls, SOX 404 internal controls, audit legal cases, director and officer changes, company history, share prices, income statements and compliance difficulties.
  • Bank Regulatory
    Accounting data for bank holding companies, commercial banks, savings banks, and savings and loans institutions. Data is sourced from the required regulatory forms filled for supervising purposes.
  • Blockholders
    Standardized data for large-block shareholders of companies and the size of their share holdings, used in corporate governance and finance research.
  • Centre for Research in Security Prices (CRSP)
    Security prices, return, and volume data for the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ stock markets.
  • Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index® (VIX®)
    VIX® is a key measure of market expectations of near-term volatility conveyed by S&P 500 stock index option prices.
  • COMPUSTAT
    Annual and quarterly income statements, balance sheets, statements of cash flows, and supplemental data on publicly held US and international companies.
  • CUSIP Master Files
    CUSIP numbers, standardized descriptions and additional information for corporate, municipal and government securities offered in North America.
  • Dow Jones Averages & Total Return Indexes
    Comprised of The Daily and Monthly Dow Jones Composite, as well as The Dow Jones Industrial, The Dow Jones Transportation, The Dow Jones Utility, The Dow 10, and The Dow 5.
  • Eventus
    Performs event studies that compute abnormal returns for specific corporate actions or events using data directly from the CRSP stock database.
  • Fama-French Portfolios and Factors
    Contains portfolios that are constructed from the intersections of two portfolios formed on size, as measured by market equity (ME), and three portfolios using, as proxy for value, the ratio of book equity to market equity (BE/ME). Returns from these portfolios are used to construct the Fama-French Factors.
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
    Financial data and history of entities filing the Report of Condition and Income (Call Report) and the OTS Thrift Financial Report (TFR). These entities include commercial banks, savings banks, or savings and loans.
  • Federal Reserve Bank Reports
    Consists of three parts: foreign exchange rates, interest rates and FRB-Philadelphia State Indexes.
  • Institutional Brokers Estimates System (I/B/E/S)
    Financial forecasts from security analysts, including earnings per share, revenue, cash flow, long-term growth projections and stock recommendations.
  • KLD Research and Analytics
    Social ratings for all companies in the Domini 400 Social Index.
  • Philadelphia Stock Exchange
    Data on trading of stocks, equity options, index options and currency options.
  • Risk Metrics
    Data on corporate governance, including RiskMetrics Group Historical Governance, Historical Directors data, Voting Results data, and Shareholder Proposal data.
  • SEC-mandated Disclosure of Order Execution Statistics
    Data on public disclosure of order execution and routing practices.
  • Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE)
    The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)'s over-the-counter corporate bond market real-time price dissemination service. Bringing transparency to the corporate bond market, it helps create a level playing field for all market participants by providing comprehensive, real-time access to corporate bond price information.

Databases

• OECD iLibrary
  Search for Banking Statistics.
• Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS)
  See Bank Regulatory database within WRDS, which contains databases for regulated depository financial institutions in the United States.
• Mergent Online
  Financial data for commercial banks. Look up information by the industry code for Banking.
• Datastream
  Equities data for listed banks and financial institutions

Websites

• Reserve Bank of New Zealand: Statistics
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: Bank Data & Statistics
• Statistical Data Warehouse: European Central Bank
• Bank for International Settlements
  Consolidated banking statistics. BIS data is also available through Datastream.
• BIS Statistics Explorer
  Summary of locational bank statistics, by currency, instrument and residence and sector of counterparty and related banking statistics.
• Commercial Bank Data
  Report of condition and income data for all banks regulated by the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Comptroller of the Currency. All financial data are on an individual bank basis. Data on this site are available from 1976 to 2010.
• Monetary and Financial Statistics (from IMF)
• Asian Development Bank

New Zealand

• Standard setting is now under the auspices of the XRB Board and the New Zealand Accounting Standards Board (NZASB). The NZASB issues accounting standards under a delegation from the XRB Board.
• Accounting Standards Framework from the External Reporting Board (XRB) website.
• Financial Reporting Act 2013 from the New Zealand Legislation website.

International

• International Financial Reporting Standards

Australia

• Australian Accounting Standards Board
• Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards Board

Canada

• Financial Reporting and Assurance Standards Canada

France

• French Accounting Standards Authority

Germany

• Accounting Standards Committee of Germany

Japan

• Accounting Standards Board of Japan
• IFRSs in Japan

United Kingdom

• Financial Reporting Council

United States

• Financial Accounting Standards Board

Where to start

Constructing a search strategy

1. Analyse your research question, identifying important concepts within the topic.
2. Consult an encyclopedia or dictionary to gain understanding of a concept or topic. Locate encyclopedias or dictionaries by searching the Catalogue, using combinations of the keywords accounting, finance, dictionary and encyclopedia. Examples:
   • Encyclopedia of finance
   • A dictionary of accounting
3. Construct a concept table to keep track of all the possible terms and synonyms for your search.

For example, if your topic is "the effect of dividend policy on share price", you might map the key concepts as below.

• Use AND to connect concept 1, 2 and 3 (e.g., dividend policy AND share price AND effect).
• Use OR to connect the synonyms (e.g., dividend policy OR bonus).

Where to search

• Use the Catalogue to search for books and journal titles.
• Use Databases and Google Scholar to look for journal articles.
• If the library does not hold or provide access to material needed for your research, submit an Interlibrary Loan request.

For search tips, consult Business Information Skills Online and other Study skills guides.

Extend your research

Here are some strategies that build on information you already have. Start with a book or article that is relevant to your research topic and try some of the following:

• Look at the reference list to find further relevant material.
• Take note of the words used in the text of your book or article to find useful new terms for your literature search.
• Search library databases for more publications by a particular author.
• Find your book or article in the Catalogue or a database. Use the subject headings (sometimes referred to as descriptors or keywords) in the catalogue or database record to find similar material.
• Search for citations to your original book or article. You can do citation searching on:
  • Google Scholar
  • Scopus
  • Business Source Premier
  • Web of Science
• Some databases, such as Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar, also link to related articles.

The Business School uses APA style for referencing.

APA

• Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition)
• APA Style blog

Support

• Referencing
  Access a range of tools and support material to assist your referencing work.

Examples

• Quick©ite
  Use this interactive tool to view examples of references.
  Covers a range of styles used at the University of Auckland.