Companion volume F
Method, Levers and Data
How to read the levers, what the models cannot tell us, every parameter and assumption, the data and downloads, and, from the Plan, transparency, the metrics, the choice of pilot centres and the ideas for later; the references are in Sources.
Give first · Buy services, not exclusivity · Let the business carry succession
小贩文化 · Warisan Penjaja · உணவுக்கடை மரபு · Hawker Culture
Companion volume F. If you are a researcher or an evaluator, start here. It reads on its own and says which other documents to read with it.
This volume at a glance
Read this if you…
- are a researcher or an evaluator, and want to know how far the numbers can be trusted;
- want to change a setting and see what moves, or rebuild the papers from the repository;
- are checking a figure and want the method behind it (the source itself is in Sources).
The bottom line
- Every proposal has dials. For each: which can be turned, what breaks first, and what the plan falls back to. The levers are printed beside the evidence they rest on, and F.1 says where (F.1).
- The model is static. It shows a year's effect on a stall that stays open, not entry, exit or how many young cooks a better-paid trade would draw (F.2.1).
- Some inputs no one has measured. Singapore has only one early, indicative estimate of how diners respond to hawker prices, a small survey that is not a random sample (Poh, 2026), and supplier margins are unpublished. Each such input is marked as an assumption and varied (F.2.1, F.2.2).
- Every parameter is listed. Sourced, or marked as ours, with the note the model code carries for it (F.3).
- Everything is open. Text and data under CC BY 4.0, the models under MIT; each version is tagged and its PDFs can be rebuilt from the tag (F.4).
To be sure, a model can be wrong in ways its own ranges do not show. That is why the evaluator publishes either way.
How this connects
Where it comes from. The method behind every companion volume: the Follow-the-Plate model (Follow the Plate, Succession Economics), and the Follow-the-Gift funding model (the Budget Book, B.9). It also prints in full what the Plan keeps in short on transparency (§2.10), the metrics (§3.5), choosing the pilot centres (§6.3) and the ideas for later (§7.9).
Read with. Any volume whose numbers you want to test; the simulator and the data, listed in F.4.
In this volume. F.1 How to read the levers, and where each is printed · F.2 Limits and assumptions · F.3 Model parameters · F.4 Data and downloads · F.5 The references, now in Sources · From the Plan, in full: F.6 Market transparency · F.7 Success metrics we can't fake · F.8 How the pilot centres are chosen · F.9 Ideas for later, an appendix.
Terms used
- Lever. A dial on a proposal: a setting that can be turned, with what breaks first and the fallback.
- Assumption. A parameter that is ours, not taken from a published source, and varied in the Monte Carlo.
- Monte Carlo. Running the model 5,000 times per stall type with randomly drawn assumptions.
- Demand elasticity. How much custom falls when prices rise; assumed −0.5 and varied from −0.3 to −1.0.
- Pass-through. How much of a cost rise reaches the diner's price.