It is ironic, perhaps, that just as the authorities are in the midst of aggrandising their growth numbers for 2017, the economy seems to be losing a bit of momentum.
In its latest forecasts, published in the February Inflation Report, the Bank of England (BoE) suggested the economy will grow by 2.1% this year if interest rates are left unchanged.
And now the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is pushing its growth estimate in the same direction.
The previous forecasts from both the BoE and OBR, produced in November last year, homed in on the same growth number for 2017 of 1.4%.
I will not rekindle the debate as to why forecasts were reduced so dramatically in the first place. I am sure in years to come, economic historians will be quite damning of the forecasts made by institutions and factions on both sides of the Brexit debate.
Nonetheless, it is evident that the referendum result did not have the immediately depressing impact on economic activity that was widely predicted.
The area that has been most immediately, and obviously, impacted by the UK's exit vote has been the currency which, depending how you measure it, has lost around 15% of its pre-referendum value.
Asset allocators back sterling to 'easily recover' despite Brexit fears
Sterling is a notoriously volatile currency. While the past nine months have been a period of considerable weakness, this is far from being unprecedented.
Between mid-2007 and late-2008, for instance, it depreciated by around 25%, to a similar level as that prevailing today. On the other hand, between mid-2013 and mid-2015, it appreciated by 15%.
And during my career as a professional economist, I can remember the pound trading as high as 2.45 against the US dollar and as low as 1.05 - from where it subsequently appreciated by more than 40% over a period of about nine months.
While periods of severe currency volatility are not uncommon, they can be damaging; however, the history of the pound since the start of the 1980s suggests that greater damage is done to the reputations of central bankers and economists than to underlying economic activity.
High-street pricing
With regard to the performance of the economy in 2017, we are trying to gauge the extent of two different influences of sterling's recent battering.
First, higher import prices generally, combined more specifically with rising energy costs, are feeding through to high-street pricing. Against the backdrop of only slow growth in average earnings, this implies that real growth in household spending could be squeezed.
However, the system has many moving parts. It is likely that wages will increase faster in 2017 than during the last few years, in addition to which, a lower savings ratio may absorb some of the shock of reduced real income growth.
At the moment, it seems as though household spending has decelerated, but it would be foolish to extrapolate from a pre- and post-end-year spending period that is notoriously difficult to interpret.
Having said that, all other things being equal, you might think that higher inflation would be detrimental to consumption.
True… but if inflation is expected to be even higher in the following period, then it is possible that households will bring forward future planned spending, even if current real incomes are being squeezed.
