Should a cursor only be applied on :hover?

Question

For any element, we can specify which cursor should show when hovering the item using e.g.

cursor: pointer;

Is it better to specify this rule only on :hover (as in this answer),

.my-element:hover {
  cursor: pointer;
}

or to the element without any pseudo class (since it will only affect the user interface on hover anyway, as in this answer)

.my-element {
  cursor: pointer;
}

Which would be preferrable?

What would be the pros/cons of either way?