Last month, the latter showed increasing optimism and the former a pick-up in manufacturing activity, in part because of evidence that China's economy has bottomed out. But will this upturn survive the Brexit shock? There are at least three reasons why this might hurt the eurozone: the weaker pound and stronger euro will reduce eurozone competitiveness slightly; uncertainty about future trading rules (and about whether another nation might follow the UK out) could depress capital spending; and the sharp drop in bank shares might crimp bank lending. Next week's releases won't give us a definitive answer to the strength of these forces, but they'll be a start.
In the UK, on the other hand, we should see evidence that at least one part of the economy approached the referendum in good health. Although official figures could show that retail sales volumes didn't move much in June, this will follow some big rises earlier. Sales are likely to be up by some 2 per cent in the second quarter over the first quarter.
Other figures next week, however, could show that this growth is unsustainable, even without the Leave vote. Tuesday's figures could show that CPI inflation has edged up from last month's 0.3 per cent, due in part to higher petrol prices: the same thing will be evident in a rise in producer input prices. This will suggest that the boost to real incomes and spending power from low oil prices is now fading.
This effect will be exacerbated by the fact that wage inflation isn't rising; Wednesday's figures could show it stuck around 2 per cent. One reason for such low growth is that there is still an excess supply of labour: Wednesday's figures will show that there are 2.1m people out of the labour force who'd like a job, as well as the 1.7m officially unemployed. Another reason - which will be implied by Wednesday's figures - is that productivity growth is still low.
These two pressures suggest that the weaker pound might squeeze real incomes, by raising prices more than wages. If so, things will get tougher for retailers.
