Gary T. Ford is a Professor of Marketing at Kogod College of Business Administration, the American University. His major research interest is in public policy issues in marketing. Professor Ford has studied a variety of public policy issues such as consumer education, health claims of food labels, and Federal Trade Commission policy on deception.

Ford, Gary T., "Adoption of Consumer Policies by States: Some Empirical Perspectives," Journal-of-Marketing-Research, Vol.15 (Feb 1978) pp.49-57.

This article empirically examined the relationship between states' demographic and socio-economic characteristics and states' paces in adopting consumerism legislation. Observing that states adopt consumerism legislation at different rates and drawing from diffusion of innovation research, Professor Ford grouped states with similar pace together and then studied the characteristics of individual states in each group.

Borrowing the views of political science literature on diffusion of consumer law adoption among states, Professor Ford postulated that when considering adopting particular consumerism legislation, states take cues from other states in their region and from other states that are outside their region but to which they are demographically or scioeconomically similar. Thus, by clustering states with similar pace in enacting consumer laws, one ought to find states within a cluster are either in neighborhood or share similarities in certain demographic and socioeconomic variables. Based on political science and some marketing literature, Professor Ford further speculated that the variables, by which states within the same cluster are similar, are:

a) Urbanization: Percentage of the state's population living in urban areas;

b) Economic Activity: Percentage of national retail sales accounted by the state;

c) Education: Percentage of the state's population over 25 who have graduated from high school.

d) Racial composition: Percentage of the state's population who are white.

An empirical study was conducted to verify the above propositions. Although the findings are far from being definitive, evidences are available to support Professor Ford's conceptual framework. Additionally, the findings also suggest that no clusters of states do always lead in all kinds of consumer legislation. A cluster may be an opinion leader in enacting legislation related to legal remedies but a laggard in enactment of fair trade legislation.

As historically enactment of consumerism legislation at the state level has preceded the institution of similar policy by the federal government, this article serves as important groundwork for understanding the legal environments facing marketers.

Ratchford-Brain; Ford-Gary-T, "A Study of Prices and Market Shares in the Computer Mainframe Industry," Journal of Business April 1976 v49 n2 194-218

Ford-Gary-T, "State Characteristics affecting the Passage of Consumer Legislation," Journal of Consumer Affairs. Summer 1977 v11 n1 177-182.

Jolson-Marvin-A; Ford-Gary-T; "When Marketers cope with Moral Pollution - The Case of Sex Content in Movies," Akron-Business-and Economic Review. Fall 1977 v8 n3 16-25.

Spekman-Robert-E; Ford-Gary-T, "Perceptions of Uncertainty within a Buying Group," Industrial-Marketing-Management. 1977; v6n6, 395-403

Bloom-Paul-N; Ford-Gary-T, "Evaluation of Consumer Education Programs," Journal-of-Consumer-Research. Dec 1979; v6n3, 270-279

Jacoby-Jacob; Hoyer-Wayne-D; Ford-Gary-T; Yalch-Richard; Mizerski-Richard-W, "Viewer Miscomprehension of Televised Communication," Journal-of-Marketing. Fall 1982; v46n4, pp. 12-43

Aaker-David-A; Ford-Gary-T, "Unit Pricing Ten Years Later: A Replication," Journal-of-Marketing. Winter 1983; v47n1, pp. 118-122

Ford-Gary-T; Calfee-John-E, "Recent Developments in FTC Policy on Deception," Journal-of-Marketing. Jul 1986; v50n3, pp. 82-103

Ford-Gary-T; Smith-Ruth-Ann, "Inferential Beliefs in Consumer Evaluations: An Assessment of Alternative Processing Strategies," Journal-of-Consumer-Research. Dec 1987; v14n3, pp. 363-371

Ford-Gary-T; Smith-Darlene-B; Swasy-John-L, "Consumer Skepticism of Advertising Claims: Testing Hypotheses from Economics of Information," Journal-of-Consumer-Research. Mar 1990; v16n4, pp. 433-441

Ford-Gary-T; Hastak-Manoj; Mitra-Anusree; Ringold-Debra-Jones, "Can consumers interpret nutrition information in the presence of a health claim? A laboratory investigation," Journal-of-Public-Policy-and-Marketing. Spring 1996; v15n1, pp. 16-27

Ford-Gary-T; Mazis-Michael-B, "Informing buyers of risks: Analysis of the marketing and regulation of all terrain vehicles," Journal-of-Consumer-Affairs. Summer 1996; v30n1, pp. 90-123