We study the renormalized volume of asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein (AHE in short) manifolds 
$(M,g)$ when the conformal boundary 
$\unicode[STIX]{x2202}M$ has dimension 
$n$ even. Its definition depends on the choice of metric 
$h_{0}$ on 
$\unicode[STIX]{x2202}M$ in the conformal class at infinity determined by 
$g$, we denote it by 
$\text{Vol}_{R}(M,g;h_{0})$. We show that 
$\text{Vol}_{R}(M,g;\cdot )$ is a functional admitting a ‘Polyakov type’ formula in the conformal class 
$[h_{0}]$ and we describe the critical points as solutions of some non-linear equation 
$v_{n}(h_{0})=\text{constant}$, satisfied in particular by Einstein metrics. When 
$n=2$, choosing extremizers in the conformal class amounts to uniformizing the surface, while if 
$n=4$ this amounts to solving the 
$\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{2}$-Yamabe problem. Next, we consider the variation of 
$\text{Vol}_{R}(M,\cdot ;\cdot )$ along a curve of AHE metrics 
$g^{t}$ with boundary metric 
$h_{0}^{t}$ and we use this to show that, provided conformal classes can be (locally) parametrized by metrics 
$h$ solving 
$v_{n}(h)=\text{constant}$ and 
$\text{Vol}(\unicode[STIX]{x2202}M,h)=1$, the set of ends of AHE manifolds (up to diffeomorphisms isotopic to the identity) can be viewed as a Lagrangian submanifold in the cotangent space to the space 
${\mathcal{T}}(\unicode[STIX]{x2202}M)$ of conformal structures on 
$\unicode[STIX]{x2202}M$. We obtain, as a consequence, a higher-dimensional version of McMullen’s quasi-Fuchsian reciprocity. We finally show that conformal classes admitting negatively curved Einstein metrics are local minima for the renormalized volume for a warped product type filling.