This paper makes three contributions to our understanding of the price discovery process in currencymarkets. First, it provides evidence that this process cannot be the familiar one based on adverse selectionand customer spreads, since such spreads are inversely related to a trade’s likely...

We study the relationship between foreign exchange trading activity and volatility on theUSD/EUR foreign exchange market on the basis of a unique data set around the events of09/11/2001. We find that volatility and bid-ask spreads are by far larger at that time, but theshock is not persistent....