I've heard from several places over the years that the global depression that started in 1929 after the Stock Market Crash is only referred to as the "Great" depression in the US, with the most common reasoning being that it lasted much longer in the US. Is this true? The most conservative estimate for when the Depression ended in the US is late 1939 (some economists and historians argue it didn't end until 1946, but they are a minority at this point).
So what is the consensus of historians in other countries of when this depression ended in their respective countries, and what do they typically call it?
Greetings! Whilst more can, and definitely should, be said regarding the perception of the Great Depression in Europe, South America, Africa, and other Asian countries, you might find this longer thread on the consequences of the Great Depression on China and Japan, with great overviews of their beginning, middle, and "end" from u/Drdickles, u/redrighthand_, and myself.
As a tl:dr of the question in regards to Japan: most historians and economists of the time (and up until this day) refer to the Great Depression as the Showa Depression, in reference to the fact that it occurred in the early years of the reign of the Showa Emperor Hirohito (r. 1926-1989, often referred to simply as the 'Showa Era'). This is not to be confused with the Showa Economic Crisis, which occurred exclusively in Japan in 1927 with the banking sector, and saw almost three-quarters of the country's banks fail. Below is an extract from the my linked response which deals with the recovery from the Showa Depression, which Japan managed to recover from relatively quickly in comparison to the rest of the world (majority of economic historians agree on 1932 as the year of recovery, though a minority maintain that full recovery was not achieved until the start of the Second-Sino Japanese War in 1937).
Recovery?
When the Minseito government fell in 1931 and was replaced by a Seiyukai party led by Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, Japan managed to recover from the effects of the Showa Depression. This was due in part to the economic policies of Takahashi Korekiyo, who was finance minister under the new government. Described by some of his contemporaries as the "Japanese Keynes", Korekiyo's policies were a massive help to the Japanese recovery. He took Japan off the gold standard, approved major deficit spending to finance the expanded costs of empire in Manchuria, and increased government spending on arms manufacturing. It should be noted at this time that Korekiyo was rather ahead of his time for the title "Japanese Keynes", as John Maynard Keynes himself would not write his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money for another four years.
By 1932, Japan had mostly shaken off the impacts of the Great Depression, but the scars remained. Korekiyo's budgetary changes had increased the flow of money to the military, with three-fourths of all government spending being spent on them by 1937 (compared to just one-fourth in 1930). Further, the resentment felt by most Japanese at the "free market" system which the Zaibatsu (large business conglomerates who expanded their monopolies during the Depression) represented lingered well into the 1930s, with the government later going so far as to try and create "new Zaibatsu" in an attempt to downsize the economic dominance of the Big Four (Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Yasuda, and Sumitomo).
The government also stepped into the rural economy, providing debt relief and employment opportunities for farmers as well as workers in the countryside. However, the memory of the unrest and unemployment from the "corruption of the cities" also remained, and it was such resentment for urban capitalism which prompted the assasination of Tsuyoshi on May 15th, 1932.
For more on the role of Korekiyo and the ending of the Depression in Japan, the sources below provide an excellent discussion on the matter. Further, there is a rather nice biography by Richard Smethurst of Korekiyo on JSTOR which is also linked below, but sadly is locked behind a pay-wall. Hope this brief response helps, and happy history reading!
Further Reading and Sources
Cha, Myung Soo. "Did Takahashi Korekiyo Rescue Japan from the Great Depression?" The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 1 (2003): 127-44. Accessed March 16, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3132497.
Nanto, Dick K., and Shinji Takagi. "Korekiyo Takahashi and Japan's Recovery from the Great Depression." The American Economic Review 75, no. 2 (1985): 369-74. Accessed March 16, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1805627.
Okura, Masanori, and Juro Teranishi. "EXCHANGE RATE AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY OF JAPAN IN THE 1930s." Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics 35, no. 1 (1994): 1-22. Accessed March 16, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43295966.
Smethurst, Richard J. From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s Keynes London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1tm7fs4