Yes. The keyword is generally.
If beef prices go up because of a drought in beef-producing regions, that's not inflation. That's just supply and demand. But if it's the 15th Century, and the mediums of exchange are gold and silver, and the Conquistadors bring back boatloads of new gold and silver from the New World, and prices rise generally, that's inflation.
The prevailing theory is that the price level (P) is a function of the money supply (M), the rate at which it circulates (V), and the total amount of goods and services in the economy (y):
MV = Py
So, if the money supply, in combination with the rate of circulation rises faster than overall economic output, you get inflation. The explanation as to why the Fed's "quantitative easing" has not caused more inflation is that the money hasn't circulated much, being not loaned out by the banks, but rather, kept on deposit at the Fed by the banks.
We talk about velocity a lot. The unwinding of the asset purchases (taking liquidity back out of the system) is going to be critical. expat_panama and I have discussed that numerous times.
These are the actual numbers from the Fed
| annual money supply growth | average annual gdp growth | average money velocity | ||
| 1980-2008 | 8.5% | 6.1% | 2.428 | |
| 2008-2014 | 6.4% | 2.6% | 1.485 |
Since 2008 both velocity and GDP growth have fallen. Money supply growth fell too, and what little growth we did have was thanks to the Fed's money printing --and now it's phasing out. Something big has to change or we're looking at a very big deflation problem.