Abstract: Based on the survey data of 15 poverty-stricken villages in Zhouqu county in the deeply poverty-stricken area, this paper investigates the degree of mutual funds’ support for poverty-stricken households in terms of availability and matching. Based on the fitting results from the bivariate Probit model, the experiences from Zhouqu county show that the poverty alleviation mode with the help of mutual funds is characterized by easier fund availability but weaker matching: in terms of the availability of mutual funds, in order to give priority to meeting the requirements of local governments’ supervision and assessment, the mutual funds appeal to have some“tolerance”for the application of mutual funds from poor households; in terms of the matching of mutual funds, the risk of payment collection has become the priority factor of mutual funds, showing a certain degree of selective characteristics of“aversion to the poor and love to the rich”. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the current supervision mode, perfect the mutual fund guarantee mechanism, strengthen the mutual fund supply orientation and promote the group joint guarantee system, so as to help improving the precision of mutual fund poverty alleviation.

Key words: deep poverty; mutual funds; poverty alleviation