Did Korekiyo Takahashi Rescue Japan from the Great Depression?

Korekiyo Takahashi is remembered as a wise finance minister saving Japan from the Great Depression, but the role of his policy remains to be rigorously measured, with proper control for other forces also driving the recovery. Vector autoregression analysis of previously unexploited monthly data indicates that while Takahashi’s fiscal expansion was critical in reversing the downswing, the subsequent upswing was sustained by industrial policy promoted by "new bureaucrats" as well as by world recovery. The rise of fascism also aided the rebound by creating a political setting, which generated downward wage shocks.