Whither now?

The author is one of the UK's eminent monetary economists and a member of the UK's Monetary Policy Committee. After summarising his early academic career, he discusses his time at the Bank of England and the formation of UK monetary policy. This leads on to a survey of his later experiences in returning to academia and his analysis of foreign exchange markets and central bank autonomy. The movements of foreign exchange markets have been thought to react upon the arrival of news concerning changes in monetary policy. However, close examination of the US forex market does not show any significant fluctuations in reaction to particular news disclosures. Economic news with pre-announced release dates have been proven to produce jumps in volatility within minutes of disclosure. The use of high frequency data at given intervals has been shown to produce price spikes and subsidence after a few minutes.