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AbstractWe study the business cycle properties of the four largest euro area economies in the wake of the recent recession episodes. The analysis is based on the factors estimated from a multi-country and multi-sector data-rich environment. We measure alikeness of business cycles by studying the synchronization of up and down phases, the convergence properties of country fluctuations towards the euro area cycles and the contribution of the euro area factor to national GDP volatilities. While the economic fluctuations of the four euro area member states were similar before the global financial turmoil, we gather compelling evidence of an asymmetric behaviour of Spanish fluctuations relative to the euro area one. The paper studies the statistical properties of the business cycles of the four largest euro area economies, Germany, France, Italy and Spain in the wake of the recent recession episodes. In particular, we study the degree of (a)symmetry by looking at the synchronization of up and down phases, the convergence properties of country fluctuations towards the euro area cycles and the contribution of the euro area factor to the volatility of national GDPs. Our empirical investigation brings the following results for the four largest euro area economies. First, data support the idea of a substantial economic integration among France, Germany and (perhaps surprisingly) Italy.The estimated national and sector-specific characteristics appear to co-move strongly, to be well synchronized and to have converged to a common euro area factor. Conversely, Spanish business cycles appear to be decoupled from the rest of the euro area; in particular, the Spanish economic activity seemed to be overheated before the crisis and over-depressed in the aftermath. Our empirical evidence supports the view of an imperfect synchronization relative to the euro area factor and suggests a sluggish and incomplete convergence of the Spanish factor to the euro area one. Moreover, contrary to the common wisdom that identifies the European sovereign debt crisis as the trigger of the growing gap among euro area countries, our subsample analysis locates the economic decoupling of Spain 1 year before that. Second, in accordance with the behaviour of the estimated factors, the main driver of domestic fluctuations (for France, Germany and Italy) is the common euro area factor which explains more than half of the domestic GDP volatility and its components. The fl...