Government and private sector data out this week will give a good indication of the strength of the economic recovery and whether there is, in fact, any recovery.
The crown financial accounts are due out this morning for the four months ended October.
Weakness in the accounts ending September reflected the costs of the Canterbury earthquake and financial company bailouts, as well as consumer spending failing to surge as much as Treasury forecast.
BNZ markets economist Stephen Toplis said the underlying picture also looked weak in September.
The big test in October's accounts would be how tax revenue compared with what was planned.
"Fundamentally, we believe the New Zealand Government is moving into a structural operating deficit of as much as 5% of GDP. This will be painful to mend."
Tomorrow, the Manpower Survey will give some indication of employment intentions among businesses.
Mr Toplis said the previous quarter's survey result at plus 16 was one of a handful that gave the market some assurance the labour market was recovering. That was subsequently verified by the September quarter's household labour force survey.
"We haven't seen anything that's come seriously unstuck in the meantime, which suggests a good chance of another reasonable quarter ahead [in terms of] employment outlook by businesses."
The wholesale trade results were not expected to be "particularly positive or negative", he saidAlso out tomorrow is the QVNZ housing report.
Mr Toplis said the only thing he could clearly be positive about was the rebuilding phase after the Canterbury earthquake.
On the price side, there seemed to be a big gap between sellers' price expectations and buyers' appraisals of value. That was why sales were so low.
"Something has to give and we don't think it will be the buyers any time soon."
On Wednesday, figures on building work put in place and the BNZ-Business NZ performance-in-manufacturing index will be released.
A moderate correction in third-quarter building work was anticipated, but the manufacturing sector had been difficult to get a clear reading of lately, he said.
The Reserve Bank was on Thursday expected to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 3%.
"The local recovery continues to disappoint, for the most part, and renewed global uncertainties also argue for the Reserve Bank to sit with its stimulative 3% OCR setting for the near future."
Looking to the future, and providing the global economy maintained reasonable growth, inflation risks suggested the central bank would resume removing stimulus. March and June of next year remained the most likely months for a hike in the OCR, Mr Toplis said.
The week ends with electronic card transactions data on Thursday and the overseas trade indices figures on Friday.
While October's card transactions were up, they were effectively a "damp squib" given the price effects from the higher GST to start with but also in light of the personal tax cuts that also occurred on October 1, he said.
The latter might show up more clearly in November's transactions.
New Zealand's buoyant terms-of-trade position might not yet be obvious in the September quarter figures, Mr Toplis said.
