The elasticity of supply of a commodity is expected to be greater in the long run than in the short run, because if producers believe the increase in demand for the commodity is permanent they will increase the input of all factors of production for that commodity, whereas in the short run producers can only increase the input of certain factors of production. For example, certain factors of production are required for the production of corn. Some of these factors such as land, equipment, corn seedlings are fixed over a shorter time periods, because it takes some time to bring more of these factors into productive use. Other factors such as water, fertilizer and labour to an extent are relatively variable, as the amount of these factors dedicated to corn growing can be varied fairly quickly. Therefore in the short run, corn growers can only increase their use of variable factors in order to utilize their fixed factors more intensively (e.g. in attempt to boost production, producers can probably apply more water, fertilizer etc to their crop). Where as in the long run, all factors of production are variable, therefore corn producers can now, obtain more land, more equipment and more corn seedlings etc. This level of output is likely to prove to be more productive than attempting squeeze more out of the fixed factors, and because of this the long run supply will tend to be more elastic than in the short run.
             ...