The specific factor model concludes that owners of capital in the export sector will gain at the expense of capital owners in the import-competing sector and that the effects on workers in both industries is ambiguous. The Heckscher-Ohlin model demonstrates that income will be redistributed from owners of a country's scarce factor, who will lose, to owners of a country's abundant factor, who will gain. The immobile factor model represents one extreme, in which factors are stuck in one industry and cannot move between sectors. The Heckscher-Ohlin model represents another extreme, in which factors can move freely and costlessly between sectors. The specific factors model represents an intermediate special case in which one factor is completely immobile while the other is completely mobile.
Some factors are easily adaptable to other industries.
For example, accountants are needed in all businesses, trucks can be used to transport tomatoes or software. Other factors are so specialized that they cannot be easily adapted for use in other industries. Machinery is often carefully designed for a particular production process and cannot be applied elsewhere. However, the adaptability of any productive factor is likely to change over time, with mobility rising the longer the amount of time that elapses. Thus, if a country were to suddenly liberalize trade, in the very short run, perhaps up to a few weeks, most of the productive factors would not adjust to the change in prices.