This article published in the Journal of Regulatory Science in 2019 has helped to create an interesting heuristic problematic for the regulatory science field. The essence of the treatise is moving regulatory policy from full compliance with all rules to substantial compliance with all rules and full compliance with specific predictor rules. This is a dramatic departure from regulatory policy that has been promulgated within the regulatory field for the past 100 years.

Because of the regulatory compliance theory of diminishing returns, the following approaches and methodologies of differential monitoring, key indicators for licensing and quality, as well as risk assessment rules have been introduced to the regulatory science field. None of this could have occurred without the introduction of this theory. It has really altered how we approach regulatory compliance from a measurement and program monitoring perspective. The implications of this theory will be further explored in an upcoming post dealing with program monitoring paradigms and the relationship between regulatory compliance and program quality.