Abstract： Nowadays， China’s economic growth maintains a good development momentum of medium –high speed in the new normal period， but the trend of the business cycle in some provinces has appeared to be diverged. In view of this， this paper analyzes provincial business cycles in China with respect to characteristics of consistent fluctuation， regional coordinated development， and idiosyncratic divergence over the period 1988—2016. Using a hierarchy dynamic factor model， this paper decomposes fluctuations in China’s provincial business cycles into a national factor， factors specific to provincial groups， and provincial -specific factors. The results show that the national factor plays a dominant role in accounting for most provincial business cycle fluctuations， which implies that the new growth pattern featured by medium -high level and low volatility is a common phenomenon across provinces. In other words， it means that the good momentum of the overall development of the national economy has a broad backbone support. The individual effect results show that business cycles in the Midwest follows those in the East， while those in the Northeast stays relatively independent. There is obvious evidence of business cycle “club convergence” within the East and Midwest but “idiosyncratic divergence” within the Northeast. The government should be aware of the local idiosyncratic risk of provincial economic growth， strengthen the mechanism of provincial coordinated development， and achieve the global steady state at the medium-high level of national economic growth.

Key Words： provincial business cycle； dynamic hierarchical factor model； nonparametric granger causality test