Voternomics

51: Fancy Face Cream, South Korea's Next Economic Engine

This week the Benchmark team takes a look at one of South Korea's most promising new exports: beauty products. Seoul is pivoting away from the country's reliance on government-sponsored companies like Samsung and LG and instead attempting to capitalize on its multi-generation tradition of expensive, multi-step skincare regimens. Women - and men - around the world are buying into the trend, helping overseas beauty sales for Korean beauty products to rise 73 last year. Co-hosts Kate Smith and Scott Lanman are joined by Nina Bahadur, a senior editor at Conde Nast, and Alicia Yoon, founder of the cult K-beauty e-commerce company Peach and Lily, to see just how much fancy face creams are helping South Korea's economy.See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

This famously is the year of elections. So the Stephanomics feed has been taken over by our bonus series, Voternomics. It’s a weekly look at the way geopolitics - and elections - are upending the longstanding assumptions of policymakers and business people around the world. Hosted by Stephanie Flanders, head of Bloomberg Economics and former  BBC economics editor, former government advisor Allegra Stratton and Opinion columnist and author Adrian Wooldridge.