Asset bubbles are hard to spot and even harder to tackle but recent lessons about the damage they can do may force policy-makers to pop them in the future, a top Federal Reserve official said on Wednesday.

I am sympathetic to the view that policy-makers should consider intervention in certain circumstances. That may simply be by speaking against the practices ... as opposed to taking action with interest rates, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart told a panel discussion hosted by Emory University.

There are a range of things that policy-makers could do to in effect step on the brakes a little bit and keep the economy more stable, said Lockhart, a voting member of the Fed's policy-setting committee this year.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by James Dalgleish)