Over time, consumers are able to make more consumption adjustments, causing demand to become more elastic. (For example, when the quantity of oil on the market decreased rapidly in the early 70s, it took time for consumers to switch to more fuel-efficient cars, find other modes of transportation, move closer to work, etc. But these changes did take place and made demand for gasoline more elastic.)

   When operative demand curves becomes D_LR we see that price falls a good bit relative to what it had risen to in the short run, and quantity sold continues to drop from the short-run equilibrium.

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