Short run / long run

Long run / short run

“In the long run” and “in the short run” are expressions we use to talk about time and how things can change over different periods. “In the long run” means thinking about what will happen far into the future, after a lot of time has passed. On the other hand , “in the short run” means thinking about what will happen soon, in the near future, or right away.

So how many months or years is “the long run”? I can’t tell you. It all depends on the context. There’s no exact amount of time that defines the long run or the short run. What feels like a long time in one situation might feel short in another. You just have to get a sense of it from the conversation.

Personal decisions

We often use “in the long run” and “in the short run” when talking about personal decisions, especially when we’re thinking about how our choices will affect us, or how our choices might change, now versus in the future.

Let’s start with an easy example. Let’s say you take a new job in a new city: you don’t know anything about that place. How would you approach finding a place to live?

Here’s what I might say. I might say something like this, “In the short run, I’ll rent a small furnished apartment because I don’t know the city very well. In the long run, though, I’d like to find a neighborhood I really like and buy a house .”

What are we doing here? We’re talking about what will happen in the near future—right away, for a short period of time—and then we’re talking about what will happen farther in the future.

I might have to move right away—like in two weeks. That’s the short run. I’ll need a roof over my head. I don’t know the city. I don’t know where I’d like to live. I don’t have time to move all my stuff. I’ll rent a small furnished apartment in the short run. I’ll do that next week; I’ll stay there for—I don’t know—three months. That’s the short run.

But what do I do in the long run? What do I want to be true on a more permanent basis? I want to find the neighborhood I like, I want to buy a house, I want to move my stuff into that house. That’s the long run—not right away, though.

Here’s another example with different timetables. Bartenders can make good money in the United States. If you work a Saturday night at a popular bar, you can come home with $200, $300, maybe $500 in tips for one night—and a lot of it is in cash, so tax free. Great!

But in the long run, and for many people, that’s not a sustainable career. It doesn’t offer good health insurance. It’s harder and harder to work those hours as you get older. It’s not stable, so you might not earn that same money every week throughout the year. Working as a bartender—and I’m generalizing here—but working as a bartender is a young person’s job.

So if you’re 23, 24, 25 years old, you might say, “In the short run, I’ll work as a bartender and make some money and have fun. But in the long run, I’d like to finish my degree so I can have a more traditional job.”

What’s the short run here? What’s the long run here? I don’t know; you just get a feel for it. The short run might be six months, two years, three years, something like that.

And you can always ask, too. You can follow up and say, “In the long run like six months, or in the long run like a few years?” And then the other person can clarify.

Business decisions

Now let’s take an example from business. Imagine a company is launching a new product. The CEO might say, “In the short run, we expect to spend a lot of money on marketing and development. We might not see profits right away.” Here, the focus is on what happens immediately after the product launch—the costs, the challenges, and maybe even some losses.

But then the CEO might add, “In the long run, we expect this product to become one of our top sellers and earn significant profits.” Now, they’re thinking about what will happen many months, or even years, from now, once the product has found its place in the market and started generating profits. They’re willing to lose a little money in the short run because they believe it will pay off in the long run.

‘In’ vs. ‘over’ the long run

It’s most common to say “in the long run” or “in the short run.” But you can also say “over the long run.” And that means something slightly different.

“In the long run” means, “what will be true at some point in the future.” But “over the long run” means, “what will be true during and throughout a long period of time.”

So remember, if you say, “in the long run,” you’re thinking about a point in the future. If you say, “over the long run,” you’re thinking about what will happen during a long period of time.

Imagine you’re talking about investing money. You might say, “In the long run, investing in the stock market is likely to yield higher returns than keeping money in a savings account.” Here, “in the long run” talks about the end result: after many years, at a point in the future, you will have better financial returns from your investments.

On the other hand , you might use “over the long run” to talk about what happens during this long period of time. You might say, “Over the long run, the stock market tends to go up and down, even as it generally grows in value.” In this case, “over the long run” refers to the ongoing process, what happens during and throughout the time you have your investments.

Over the long run, it goes up and down, but trends upward. In the long run, it’s a better decision than leaving money in a savings account.

And just FYI: you cannot say “over the short run.” That doesn’t work.