Shipments in cardboard boxes reflect economic ills

NEW YORK - Whether it's a Big Mac or a Mac computer, nearly everything comes in a cardboard box.

So if you want a gauge on whether people are eating more, buying more clothes, loading tunes on a new iPod or upgrading their computer equipment - in other words, whether they're spending money - it makes sense to track how many cardboard boxes are shipped each month.

That's why, besides crunching numbers on the output of durable goods, auto sales and housing starts, economic experts track shipments of corrugated boxes - containers that are made of cardboard, paperboard or heavy duty paper. And lately those boxes haven't contained a lot of good news about the economy.

According to the Fibre Box Association, shipments fell 3.5 percent in the second quarter of last year, compared with a year earlier. Then they fell 3.3 percent in the third quarter. After that, the bottom fell out: Shipments fell 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier.

This year corrugated box shipments have fallen, on a year-over-year basis, 5.1 percent in January and 8.3 percent in February. The numbers for March will be out in mid-April.

"There has been no improvement relative to the previous three months," Longbow Research analyst Joshua Zaret said. "March should show some seasonal improvement within a context of weak overall demand, but these are very poor numbers."