Irving Fisher, Simon Newcomb, and their plans to stabilize the dollar

Irving Fisher dedicated Stabilizing the Dollar (1920) to Simon Newcomb for anticipating him "in proposing plans for stabilizing monetary units." The congruence of Newcomb's and Fisher's monetary theories and reform proposals was not as straightforward as Fisher's book dedication suggested. Their plans had different theoretical roots: Fisher's compensated dollar plan was the outcome of his quantity theory of money, while Newcomb held a classical monetary theory. We compare Newcomb's and Fisher's plans to stabilise the dollar and explore the theoretical rationales behind them offering an illustration of how similar proposals can be the result of different theories.