BOSTON — A new report says the Massachusetts economy outperformed the nation as a whole during the first quarter of 2012.
MassBenchmarks said Friday that the state's economy grew at a 4.5 percent annualized rate over the first three months of the year, compared with the 2.2 percent annualized increase in the U.S. gross domestic product over the same period.
MassBenchmarks is a journal of the state economy published by the UMass Donahue Institute in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
The first quarter report marks a turnaround of sorts from the fourth quarter of 2011, when MassBenchmarks reported that for the first time in six quarters the state's economy failed to outpace the nation.