This handbook offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Zambian economy, including past and current trends. The Zambian economy has evolved from simple and fragmented agrarian activities at the turn of the 20th Century into a wide range of organized and regulated modern economic activities today. While the economy has largely revolved around the mining industry since the early 1920s when the extraction of copper and other mineral ores on the Copperbelt begun, there has been a gradual broadening of economic activities over time, with services now accounting for almost two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP).

This book shows that since colonial times, one of the persistent items on the economic development agenda in what is today known as Zambia has been the need to diversify the economy to reduce dependence on mining, in terms of foreign exchange earnings and public revenue. While the need to diversify the economy has been well-acknowledged by successive Zambia governments, including the current government, achieving this goal has proved to be elusive so far. By presenting a collection of well-researched and empirically supported chapters on the key areas of the Zambian economy, this volume gives readers a good sense of where the Zambian economy has come from, where it is at the moment, but also highlights the challenges and prospects for economic growth.