What to know about the Federal Reserve's big Jackson Hole conference

What is this thing? The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has held its annual economic symposium in a lodge in Grand Teton National Park since 1982. It's a gathering of central bankers from around the world, academics, other influential economic thinkers, policymakers and journalists.

• The meat of the event consists of a series of papers on important economic ideas related to the year's topic. This year, it is "Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy."
• Fed chairman Kevin Warsh will speak first thing Friday morning (8am local time, 10am ET) in a much-anticipated speech, his first as leader of the central bank.
• Because of tradition — and the fact that the entire Fed press corps is assembled, editors and TV producers are on a hair-trigger to blast out news, and it has been the scene of many important inflection points in recent economic history — his words will attract outsized scrutiny.

What will Warsh say? Traditionally, the Fed chair uses the Jackson Hole speech to deliver a particularly important and long-range message.

• "If I could, in the high mountain air in Jackson, Wyoming, I'd like to also frame the big questions," Warsh said at a press conference in late July. "There is a tendency, especially with the proliferation of meetings and press conferences, to get caught up in the myopic: 'Did you do this by a quarter, or do that?'"

• What matters more, he said, are the lofty ideas. "What are the big questions? What's really happening with productivity? What's really happening with demographics? What's really happening to the global economy amid the shocks?"
• "Haven't made a decision whether it's going to be a big-picture speech or whether it's going to be a more traditional set-up for all the action we're going to have between September and December," Warsh said.

Reality check: Events have not cooperated with his desire to take a high-altitude approach.

• The bond market sold off following that meeting, sending long-term rates soaring, as economic commentators complained that Warsh seemed vague and unwilling to back his promises of price stability with a message of what steps the Fed might take to achieve it.
• The U.S. Treasury has twice intervened in global markets, first using a Fed facility to help prop up the Japanese yen and then acting to support long-term Treasury bonds.
• It all raises serious questions about the Fed's willingness to raise interest rates if needed to keep inflation in check and its role cooperating with the Treasury on future interventions in global bond and currency markets.

Why Jackson Hole? In the early 1980s, the Kansas City Fed leaders learned that the best way to ensure Fed chairman Paul Volcker would accept an invitation was to locate the event somewhere with good fly fishing in late August. Jackson Hole it was.

• Four decades later, the symposium has become entrenched as the premier event on the Fed's annual calendar, in no small part through network effects. Influential policymakers and thinkers want to be there because they know other influential policymakers and thinkers will be there.
• It also helps that the setting is gorgeous, the weather is usually great, and the Kansas City Fed has done an excellent job over the years of curating the topics, papers and guest lists.

What's the scene like? The event does not take place in some luxury resort. It's at a lodge in a national park that remains open to the public, and features a big, taxidermied grizzly bear in the lobby. The rooms are decidedly rustic, with no televisions or air-conditioning.

• It's not uncommon to see powerful economic policymakers from Europe or Asia wandering the hotel lobby, amid American tourists who pulled up on motorcycles or in RVs.
• Some attendees fully embrace the Western vibe, wearing cowboy boots, hats, and the like. Others stick to more traditional business casual attire.
• Behind closed doors at the symposium itself, things are considerably more intimate than at many economic conferences. The guest list, constrained by the size of the ballroom where the gathering takes place, is a bit over 100.
• After a long day of economy talk and maybe an afternoon hike, attendees usually go to a Friday dinner with Western-themed entertainment.

Who's there? The list of attendees this year has not yet been released, but in the past, the lineup has included:

• Most Fed governors and reserve bank presidents, as well as the governor or a top deputy from dozens of other global central banks.
• Top economists from international organizations and the current U.S. administration.
• Leading academic and private-sector economists.

What will make news? The biggest headlines are likely to come from Warsh's speech, but the papers presented and the discussions they spur can create their own fireworks.

• The Kansas City Fed publishes the papers on its website.
• The presentations and discussions are not broadcast (except for Warsh's speech this year), but the proceedings in the room are on-the-record, and economics journalists are on hand to report what they hear.

What are some historical highlights? Here are a few:

• In 1990, central bankers from former Soviet bloc countries attended — a vivid sign of global economic unity amid the end of the Cold War.
• The 2005 symposium became a celebration of Greenspan as he approached retirement, a high water mark for the Great Moderation, the era of solid growth and low inflation over which he presided.
• In 2007, chair Ben Bernanke started a pivot toward emergency footing in the early days of what would become the Global Financial Crisis.
• In 2010, Bernanke began the push toward a new round of quantitative easing, which became a Fed policy signature over the years that followed.
• In 2014, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi indicated that he was worried about inflation falling persistently too low, laying the groundwork for Europe's version of QE.
• In 2022, chair Jerome Powell delivered a succinct, blunt message that the Fed was willing to tolerate deterioration in the economy in order to defeat inflation that had reached multi-decade highs.

So why is this gathering special? There is something unique about the beauty of the setting and the repetition of seeing many of the same people, in the same place, year after year. The smallness of the conference contributes to its intimacy.

• Most importantly, there is a sense that it is where important moments in modern economic history have taken place. It's cool to be in the room when history happens.

Note: An earlier version of this article was published in 2022; this is an updated version of that piece.