Mass KE Rocks

Massachusetts’ economy is now firmly in recovery mode, growing more than three times as fast as the U.S. economy as a whole, new figures show.  The University of Massachusetts’ quarterly MassBenchmarks report yesterday estimated that the state’s economy expanded at a 4.3 percent annualized clip between April and June. That’s way above the 1.3 percent second-quarter growth rate that the Commerce Department reported yesterday for the U.S. economy overall.  “We seem to be in a solid recovery,” said economist Alan Clayton-Matthews, who co-authored the MassBenchmarks report. “I wouldn’t characterize it as a boom, but it does seem to be fairly steady.”  Clayton-Matthews said the Massachusetts economy is expanding faster than average because the Bay State has more high tech and less construction than other states.  “We’re producing ‘knowledge-economy’ goods and services that businesses around the world want, and we didn’t overbuild the way other parts of the country did (during the housing boom),” he said.  Rest