If you happen to be in Wyoming next weekend, you shouldn't miss a chance to witness one of the most fascinating of the northern hemisphere's late summer migrations.

Every year, towards the end of August, flocks of economists and policymakers pack up their charts and their BlackBerrys and fly west to Jackson Hole for the US Federal Reserve's annual symposium on monetary policy. There, bedecked in their weekend plumage of execrable sweaters, comfortable slacks and sensible sneakers, they can be observed, chirruping excitedly about monetary aggregates and financial stabilisation, as they take in the mountain views and exchange observations about interest rates.

It is not everybody's cup of tea, to be honest. The scenery is certainly stunning, the bracing walks by lake and forest invigorating, but sometimes the will to live can flag a little as the discussion in the formal sessions turns to disagreements about binomial coefficients and confidence intervals.

Still, the whole event can be enlightened by the spectacle of central bankers operating in unconventional environments. I remember once observing Eddie George taking commendably sharp action to avoid being hit by an overhanging rock during a white-water rafting outing. And my favourite experience was probably hearing Jean-Claude Trichet demonstrating his absolute Frenchness by explaining that the name of the Grand Teton Mountains, the sharp-peaked range that forms the natural backdrop to the symposium, is derived from the French word for a woman's breasts.

In any case, far more absorbing than the wordy disquisitions on the formal topic at hand are the snatched conversations during meals and on long walks, between the central bankers, the investment bank economists and the journalists sent there to cover the event.

That will be true this year, too, even though the formal agenda item - the interaction of financial and economic stability - is unusually timely and germane. Though all eyes will be on Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman, and his opening remarks on Friday morning, the more consequential news almost certainly will be what leaks out of those informal talks during the weekend and what, in particular, the central bankers are communicating to the market participants and reporters.

The big question, both between the various central banks and within the US Federal Reserve, is whether they have got the balance between inflation and recession right.

The Fed doubtless will do its best to paper over the widening differences between the members of its policymaking Open Market Committee. But that is getting harder. Mr Bernanke, his board of governors based in Washington and Tim Geithner, the head of the New York Fed, seem intent for now to leave interest rates at their present cycle lows as they wait to see how much more damage the economy will sustain from the continuing financial dislocations. But many of the Fed's regional bank presidents are voicing steadily increasing concern that the fed funds rate of 2 per cent is putting the United States dangerously behind the inflation curve.

The American economy still seems delicately poised between the twin risks of inflation and recession. The economy has continued to expand - albeit anaemically over the past six months - but the financial constraints continue to threaten something worse. Meanwhile, consumer price inflation hit 5 per cent in July. Then again the possibility that oil prices may have peaked and that the dollar may have bottomed should improve the prices picture in the next few months.

There will surely be much discussion of the divergent paths taken by US and European interest rate policy at the Jackson Hole meeting. The Fed's hawks point to the much more aggressive anti-inflation stance taken by the European Central Bank (ECB) as the right model for the US. While the Fed has cut rates in the last year, the ECB has raised them to quell inflation.

Yet, oddly, while policy may have diverged across the Atlantic, there still seems to be a consensus among most central bankers that both have actually been getting it right.

The Fed can afford to be slightly more relaxed about inflation because its labour markets remain flexible enough that wage demands are subdued, even as consumer prices rise. In Europe, by contrast, still powerful trade unions mean that the ECB has to be more aggressive in damping wage demands.

Indeed, the emerging view this weekend is likely to be that the convergence in interest rates will soon follow. In a year's time the difference between American and euro rates will almost certainly be much smaller than it is now.

As for the Bank of England, the verdict among global central bankers these days is not quite so charitable. In fact Britain seems dangerously close to resuming its role at these international gatherings as the sick man of the global economy.

The Bank's erratic job in the past year - veering uncertainly between inflation and recession concerns - and its less than compelling performance over the financial crisis in general and Northern Rock, in particular, have left it with sympathisers but few admirers in global monetary policy circles. At least they can enjoy the view.

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