Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, is expected to make a staunch defence of the central bank's aggressive drive to stave off recession in America through interest-rate cuts and ground-breaking interventions in financial markets.

Mr Bernanke is set to stand by his strategy to shore up America's economy in the face of the US housing slump and the global credit crunch as he comes under the spotlight from fellow central bank officials and leading economists at the Fed's annual Jackson Hole symposium.

As the Fed's chairman joins economic experts from across the world at the elite “talkfest” at the Wyoming mountain retreat, the backdrop could in some ways scarcely be more appropriate.

The daunting scenery of the Grand Teton mountains, made perilous by rockfalls and sheer drops, in some ways mirrors the risk-strewn landscape of the US and other world economies.

Delivering the gathering's keynote address, Mr Bernanke will no doubt feel the weight of the perils that he confronts as America's chief economic guide, as well as the pressure of addressing an audience as lofty as the surroundings outside the hall.

However, he is unlikely to bow to grumbling from critics that the drastic scale of the Fed's interest-rate cuts over the past year has unleashed an inflationary threat that the central bank could now struggle to quell.

Last month US inflation hit a 17-year high of 5.6 per cent, stoking claims that Mr Bernanke is keeping interest rates too low, for too long. He is expected to signal again, though, that the Fed is in no hurry to bow to calls for higher rates because the danger of US and world recession shows no sign of waning.

If Mr Bernanke feels himself in the firing line from the high-calibre experts, his discomfort will be heightened by the knowlege that his two main peers, Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, and Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, have both opted out of the chance to take their share of criticism at Jackson Hole.

That, though, will not stop the actions of the Fed's fellow central banks being subjected to searching scrutiny. The assembled brainpower in Wyoming will be directing high-powered hindsight over the events of the past 12 months, and reflecting again on the lessons of previous crises, as they mull over how present dangers can be mitigated and future upheavals prevented.

Nor will the former “masters of the Universe” in Wall Street's institutions escape examination over their role in sowing the seeds of global turmoil.

Among the issues to be considered will be whether the multimillion-pound Wall Street bonus culture fostered irresponsible behaviour by banks, and whether they should now be reined in by tougher regulation.

Yet the central bankers in Jackson Hole are likely to spend as much time on pondering what more they themselves might have done to avert disaster, and what can be done to prevent future calamities, as they spend on seeking culprits and scapegoats.

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