The Workshop on Analytics for Business, Consumer and Social Insights was held at SMU on March 14 and 15. This year’s workshop was the third edition, and showcased the latest research on how data analytics can inform policy making, drawing on presenters fr

SMU Associate Professor of Economics (Education) Ho Kong Weng was featured for his studies on the driving forces and trends underlying socioeconomic mobility in Singapore. Together with his colleagues, Associate Prof Ho used decade-long findings from the National Youth Survey of students and working youths’ concern, and found that parents’ income and occupations were major factors that predicted how long youths would stay in school, as well as the occupations and incomes they would eventually achieve. On reversing the trend of declining intergenerational mobility in Singapore, he suggested that more bursaries be provided rather than scholarships, and that there should be targeted policies to help children from disadvantaged families.