In economics, an inflationist or inflationary economic, fiscal, or monetary policy, is one that is predicted to lead to a substantial level of inflation. Similarly, an inflationist economist is one that advocates an inflationist policy. “Inflationism” is generally a term of abuse in heterodox economics. Mainstream economics holds that inflation is a necessary evil, and advocates a low, stable level of inflation, and thus is largely opposed to inflationist policies – some inflation is necessary, but inflation beyond a low level is not desirable. However, deflation is often seen as a worse danger, particularly within Keynesian economics and in the theory of debt deflation, and thus the policies advocated by Keynesian economists such as Paul Krugman to prevent deflation in cases of economic crisis are labeled as inflationist policies by others.