How this volume relates to the Plan
The Plan proposes how the trade becomes worth entering and how the craft passes on. Hawkers and Social Protection asks what protection the person at the wok has. This volume follows the money. It traces each dollar a diner pays to the people who receive it, measures how much power suppliers and landlords hold over the hawker's income, and simulates what each proposal in the plan and in Hawkers and Social Protection does for the three parties the plan names: the diner, the hawker and their family, and the public purse.
Where it plugs in
| Section | Tests or extends |
|---|---|
| D.2, D.3 | the Plan, §2.1 Who actually owns a stall · Method, Levers and Data, F.6 Market transparency |
| D.4 | the Plan, §1.1 Five numbers and a blank · the Plan, §2.1–2.2 NEA rents · Hawkers and Social Protection, C.5 · the Plan, §3.6 the Regulars' List |
| D.5, D.6 | Hawkers and Social Protection, C.12 Heritage Anchor coffeeshops · D.15 Affordability Compact · Hawkers and Social Protection, C.7 |
| D.7 | The Plan's Parts II and IV · Hawkers and Social Protection, C.9.1 · Hawkers and Social Protection, C.12 and the Budget Book, B.7 HDB tender lever |
| Succession Economics, E.1 | Succession Economics, E.4 Succession Mortgage · Succession Economics, E.5 Family Name Royalty · the Plan's Part VII first-loss reserve |
| D.8 | Method, Levers and Data, F.6 Market transparency: the Plate Ledger |
| the Budget Book, B.9 | the Budget Book, B.6 Funding stacks and the Hawker Endowment · the Budget Book, B.7 the retirement match |
The model
The Follow-the-Plate model is open: a short Python program (plate_model.py) and an interactive simulator that runs the same equations in a browser. Every parameter is either sourced or marked as an assumption, and every assumption is varied in a 5,000-draw Monte Carlo (the model run thousands of times, its uncertain numbers drawn at random).
Reading map
D.1 gives the bottom line. D.2 maps the money for the whole trade. D.3 follows one plate through six kinds of stall. D.4 asks what the hawker earns per hour. D.5 measures the power of suppliers and landlords, asks who takes a cut between the farm and the plate, and follows a stall's costs from 2013 to 2026. D.6 runs the cost shocks of 2026–27. D.7 scores every proposal for diners, hawkers and the public purse. Succession Economics, E.1 stress-tests succession finance. D.8 proposes the tracker. the Budget Book, B.9 follows the money that pays for the plan itself. Method, Levers and Data, F.2 sets out what the model cannot tell us and how this enters the plan.
All figures SGD, 2026 rules, per stall unless stated. Calibration sources were opened between 25 and 29 October 2026 and are listed at the end. A model is a structured argument, not a measurement: where Singapore publishes no figure, this volume says so and shows how much the answer depends on the guess.