Omar A. Guerrero is the Head of Computational Social Science Research at The Alan Turing Institute, London. He was an Oxford Martin Fellow at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at the University College London, as well as consulted for governmental bodies and international organisations. Gonzalo Castañeda is professor in Economics at CIDE, Mexico City. He has been a visiting scholar in various universities and research centres in the US and Europe. His previous research includes the book: The Paradigm of Social Complexity, which covers diverse approaches to economic thinking and modelling.

'The book by Omar Guerrero and Gonzalo Castañeda is a path-breaking contribution that, through a careful validation procedure of the complexity applied to sustainable development, demonstrates the logical and empirical superiority of the complex economy over the mainstream method, tight in the straitjacket of equilibrium. Furthermore, it offers convincing evidence of the need for economic policy intervention in sustainable development.' Mauro Gallegati, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy

• Part I. A Complexity Approach to Sustainable Development: 1. Introduction; 2. Policy prioritisation, complexity, and agent computing; 3. Relevant data and empirical challenges; 4. A computational model; 5. Calibration and validation; Part II. A Global View of Sustainable Development: 6. The feasibility of the sustainable development goals; 7. Government spending and structural bottlenecks; 8. Public governance and sustainable development; 9. The impact of international aid; Part III. A Focalised View of Sustainable Development: 10. Subnational development and fiscal federalism; 11. Accelerators and systemic bottlenecks; 12. Deprivation, income shocks, and remittances; 13. Lessons and reflections.