These findings help to explain why remittances matter in household strategies. Thus the money transferred has an important welfare function that policymakers should consider when formulating migration and social security policies. In addition, male migrants have preferences for specific types of assets, such as coffee plantations and pastures. These preferences not only distort the investment program that parents might follow with untied money transfers, but they also have environmental and social implications. The interest in cattle ranching and subsequent focus on pastures is a main contributor to erosion in the Sierra, and therefore investments in coffee plantations are preferable from an environmental point of view.
Plantations also are more socially desirable than pastures because they create employment.
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