Cash machines.

Eighteen months ago, 65-year-old Francisco Jaramillo bought 60 cows. Today he buys and sells cattle in the village of Zirandaro, in southern Mexico. But his tiny business could never have gotten off the ground without the monthly cash remittances sent by his son in Minnesota, in the United States. "With the money my son sends I buy a cow for US$200, fatten it, and then sell it for $400," Jaramillo says.

Jaramillo's son left his home country four years ago and now works for a janitorial company. Zirandaro, in the state of Guerrero, is one of many Mexican towns where most of the working-age men have left for the United States, home now to 10 million of their countrymen. "Remittance money is driving development in many villages," says Jose Neif, director of Notes & Equity Investors Forum, a Mexican financial consultancy.

Eighty percent of the remittances sent to Latin America come from the United States, and Mexico is the major benefactor, at $16.60 billion in 2004, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. Mexico's Central Bank estimates 2005 remittances to top $19 billion. Nevertheless, just 9% of the money coming into the country goes to productive investments. The rest finances consumption. "They buy cars or houses, but very few have the discipline to invest," says Neif.

Remittances in 2003 totaled $13.39 billion, surpassing for the first time direct foreign investment in Mexico and becoming the second-largest source of hard currency after oil exports.