If the CBI's survey on Wednesday confirms last month's optimism among manufacturers, it will show that order books have improved and that companies plan to increase production in the next three months. The following day, official figures could show that retail sales rose last month, after falling in March. This would put them on course for decent quarter-on-quarter growth.
Also on Thursday, we'll see the second estimate of first-quarter GDP. This should confirm that the economy grew by 0.3 per cent. The interest will be in the breakdown of the numbers. These will show whether growth was driven by consumer spending rather than investment. They could also show that, thanks to rising employment, labour's share of GDP is holding up despite the squeeze on real wages.
We could, however, see a little sign of rising inflation. Tuesday's producer price data could show a rise in input price inflation, although this will owe more to an oil price fall last spring dropping out of the data than to new inflation. However, output price inflation, excluding duties, could be under 2 per cent, and consumer price inflation should be stuck around 2.8 per cent, suggesting that sterling's fall over the winter hasn't added much to inflation.
We'll see what the Bank of England makes of the state of the economy when it releases minutes of its latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday. These could show that some members called for more quantitative easing, in response to the still-fragile upturn, the slight rise in sterling and the fact that wage growth is at a record low.
In the eurozone, however, things are grimmer. Thursday's flash purchasing managers' surveys are likely to show that the region is still in recession; the best we can hope for is that the degree of downturn is easing. And Friday will bring us two other important surveys. Germany's Ifo survey has weakened in recent months, and the National Bank of Belgium's business barometer (which has been well correlated with activity in the eurozone generally) has been weak. A continuation of these trends would cause economists to yet again push back the date of the expected recovery.
In the US, two indicators will tell us how serious is the economy's apparent soft patch; the flash purchasing managers' survey on Thursday and durable goods orders on Friday - although the latter has been very volatile lately. Wednesday's numbers, however, might show that the housing market is recovering, with sales of existing homes up by around 9 per cent on a year ago.
