Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Shashank Choshy,

standing in for Jason Palmer, who will be back here tomorrow. Every weekday, we provide

you with a fresh perspective on the events that are shaping the world.

Possession may be 9 tenths of the law, but that last tenth matters a great deal. If you

don't own the title to your land, it's hard to unlock its value. And the absence of robust

land rights in Africa has had baleful economic consequences. And Japan is famous for its

slick and speedy bullet trains, which have carried 10 billion passengers over 50 years. But

their slower, provincial cousins have not fared so well, cutting off Japan's greying countryside

from the rest of the country. But first, on Friday, US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader

Ginsburg died of cancer at the age of 87. A candlelit vigil was held the following day

outside the Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg was only the second woman appointed to the Supreme

Court after being nominated by Bill Clinton in 1993. She was a champion of women's rights,

and later in life, she achieved rock star status, especially among young women. Now, her

death has set the stage for a divisive battle to replace her on the court. She was born in Brooklyn

to an immigrant father, a dad was from Odessa in Russia, and to a first-generation mother.

She was Jewish. John Fassman is the economist Washington correspondent. And she was a trailblazer

throughout her life. She was one of only nine women, among 500 men at Harvard Law School,

and when she arrived, Irwin Griswald, who was then the dean, asked the women in the class to stand up

and justify taking a spot that could have gone to a man. She said the reason she took the spot is

that it was important that she understood her husband's work. That would have made her husband

Marty Laff. Marty was a tax attorney well-known in his own right. He predesticed her, but they had a

famously loving and productive and equal partnership. She had a relentless work ethic. In 25 years in the

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