On Tuesday, the ONS could report that consumer price inflation fell again last month, to around 1.5 per cent - thanks to the strong pound and supermarket price wars. Nor will there be signs of inflation in the pipeline. Other figures the same day are expected to show that manufacturers have raised their prices by just 0.2 per cent in the last 12 months - not least because they are seeing a big drop in materials' costs.
The following day should bring news that wage inflation is still very low, at around 0.5 per cent, despite falling unemployment; the official measure could drop below 2m. One reason for this is that there's still a big excess supply of labour; there are more people out of the labour force who would like a job than there are officially unemployed.
However, despite all this Wednesday's minutes of the MPC's last meeting could show that at least two members - Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty - voted to raise interest rates. Other figures in the week might show why they did so.
For one thing, the economy is still growing well. On Thursday, official figures should show another small rise in retail sales - although they might still be below April's level - while the CBI is expected to report rises in output and orders.
More significantly, Wednesday's numbers could show that labour productivity is still stagnating - which is extremely odd given the strength of output. This poses the danger that any pick-up in wage growth at all will raise company costs and hence prices because it is not being offset by efficiency gains.
We'll also see signs of strong growth in the US. Rises in industrial production and housing starts, and strong surveys of manufacturers in the New York and Philadelphia areas, should corroborate economists' expectations for annualised GDP growth of around 4 per cent in the third quarter. This will prompt the Fed to further reduce quantitative easing on Wednesday.
However, this growth isn't (yet) having a significant effect upon inflation. Tuesday's figures could show that core CPI inflation (the rate excluding food and energy) is around 2 per cent - only 0.2 percentage points higher than a year ago. This is consistent with the fact that inflation isn't very sensitive to the strength of the economy.
For equity investors, however, perhaps the most important numbers will be Tuesday's figures from the US Treasury on capital flows. In recent years, foreign buying of US equities has been a good predictor of annual returns on the All-Share Index, with big buying leading to poor returns and vice versa. Recently, the figures have shown a pick-up in foreign buying. If this continues, we'll have to reduce our expectations for equity returns.
