The cause of a monetary inflation, which is a broadly based inflation across most products and services relatively independent of demand, is often based in a monetary expansion of the currency resulting in a debasement and devaluation.
A monetary expansion is relatively difficult to achieve under an external standard since it must be overt and often deliberative. A gradual inflation is an almost natural outcome under a fiat currency regime because policy-makers can almost never resist the temptation of cheap growth and the personal enrichment that comes with it.
There can be short term non-monetary inflation-deflation cycles that tend to be more product specific in a market that is not under government price controls. But this is not the same as a broad monetary inflation or deflation.
The key difference is the value of the dollar which has little or nothing to do with a business cycle or product demand/supply induced inflation/deflation.
In the modern era the Federal Reserve can increase the money supply
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