Central bankers and top economists were heading home on Sunday after a three-day retreat in the shadow of Wyoming’s Grand Teton mountains where, in the bemused company of American holidaymakers, they grappled with the challenges brought about by a rapidly integrating world.

This year no fewer than 20 central bank governors, including Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve and Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, plus other senior officials such as Kazumasa Iwata, deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, made the pilgrimage to the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole gathering. In seminars and on hikes through pine forests and canyons, the elite group discussed the defining force of our time: globalisation.