James Diffley

James Diffley is Group Managing Director of Global Insight's U.S. Regional Services Group, with overall responsibility for U.S. Regional Services. Since 1998, he has supervised the quarterly economic forecast of the 50 states and over 300 metropolitan areas of the United States. He regularly makes presentations of these regional economic forecasts and analysis to clients, conferences, governmental bodies, and the press. These responsibilities include the Global Insight Real Estate and Construction Service, which provides detailed residential real estate forecasts for all US states and metro areas. He regularly makes presentations to groups including the National Association of Home Builders, Builder 100, Real Share Real Estate, and Real Estate Connect. He has directed numerous real estate studies, most recently, "The Mortgage Crisis: Economic and Fiscal Implications for Metro Areas", for the US Conference of Mayors in November 2007.  He is also responsible for numerous customized consulting projects. These have included long-term projections of cigarette consumption, tax revenue forecasts, and numerous local economic impact studies. Mr. Diffley joined WEFA, the predecessor of Global Insight, in 1997 after nine years with the New Jersey Department of Treasury. He did his Ph.D. training in economics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.