References where fewer rules resulted in better governance I am trying to find references that support an idea that I think I read in a book on theory of institutions. I can't find the original reference. Basically, I'd like to find anything that talks about number of rules and the strictness of enforcement as variables in controlling outcomes.

In the reference I can't find as I remember it, there was a case study related to OSHA or Worker's Compensation where increasingly strict safety policies caused an increase in accidents. The analysis ran that the existing policies were too stringent to allow workers to get their jobs done, and that the workers were deciding which rules they could ignore to get tasks completed on schedule. In this case, they had better outcomes by restricting the set of rules to a smaller set that were realistic and strictly enforced. Basically, too many rules resulted in workers prioritizing the rules to follow, while decreasing the rules allowed management to make the decision about which rules were truly the most valuable.
I think in the literature of uncertainty I once read that increasing the number of laws increases the potential source of uncertainty. However, it was probably more related to investment than to working performance. However, if you are interested "Measuring economic policy uncertainty" by Baker, Bloom and David (2013) might be a good start.