What we can be more confident of is that the ONS's figure is likely to flatter our economic performance. Some of the 'growth' in Q3 will be simply a bounceback from Q2's output being depressed by the extra bank holiday in June. GDP will also be increased by the fact that ticket sales for the Olympics will show up in Q3's numbers, and by a recovery in North Sea output.
A more downbeat assessment of the state of the economy is likely to come from the CBI's quarterly survey of manufacturers on Wednesday. It could show that output expectations are around their long-term average - which, given the low trend growth rate in output, is no great comfort. While export orders are holding up, thanks to demand from outside the eurozone, the euro area's weakness and a build-up of inventories earlier this year are holding output back.
Three surveys next week will shed light on the state of the euro area: the National Bank of Belgium's business barometer, purchasing managers surveys, and Germany's Ifo survey. These could show that the industrial recession is at least abating.
The euro area's weakness isn't just hurting the UK. It's one reason for China’s slowdown. And Wednesday's purchasing manager's survey could show that this is continuing, as manufacturing activity declined this month.
US figures, by contrast, should be mixed. We could get some good news from new home sales, which might be up some 20 per cent year-on-year. And durable goods orders should bounce back from last month's 13.2 per cent drop, which was due to a temporary slump in aircraft orders.
However, non-transport orders could post a fourth successive monthly decline, which reminds us that the fiscal cliff is depressing businesses' willingness to spend now. And the first estimate of third-quarter GDP could show that the economy grew at an annualised rate of less than 2 per cent in the quarter; that’s around 0.4 per cent growth unannualised.
The Fed's monetary policy announcement on Wednesday should be less notable than usual. It's likely to merely repeat its promise to carry on with quantitative easing until unemployment falls a long way.
