India country-specific exchange traded funds were among the hardest hit Thursday after chief economic adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian warned that government intervention in the private sector would create a moral hazard, tempering expectations for a stimulus.
Among the worst performing non-leveraged ETFs of Thursday, the VanEck Vectors India Small-Cap Index ETF (NYSEArca: SCIF) decreased 3.6% and iShares MSCI India ETF (CBOE: INDA) gained 4.3% and WisdomTree India Earnings ETF (NYSE: EPI) fell 2.8%.
Subramanian touched upon the cyclical nature of a market economy and argued against relying on government money to bailout businesses, India Times reports.
“Since 1991 we are a market economy, and in a market economy, and in a market economy there are sectors which go on sunrise an then go through sunset phase,” Subramanian said in an event in India.
“I think we expect the government to use taxpayers money to intervene every time there is a sunset phase. You introduce possible moral hazard from too-big-to-fail and possibility of a situation where profits are private and losses are socialized, which is basically an anathema to the way the market economy functions,” he added.
