John Whittaker is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Economics at Lancaster University. After an earlier career in business, he obtained a PhD in Nuclear Physics before joining the academic world as an economist in the 1980s. He taught for several years at the University of Cape Town and has held visiting positions at City University Business School and Nottingham University. Whittaker’s research and teaching experience includes monetary policy, money and banking, macroeconomics and financial economics. From 2004-09, he was a Member of the European Parliament, representing the UK Independence Party.