This book addresses academic labor markets in three countries: France, Germany, and the United States. The management of faculty careers is a critical issue in university autonomy, and in many countries recent reforms have increasingly addressed this area.

Musselin's exhaustive empirical research on academic job hiring practices and faculty career patterns included over 200 interviews with faculty members and administrators concerning two disciplines: history and math. Each of the countries has very different historical traditions with regard to how peers recruit their colleagues within the academy. Using what is known as an "economics of quality" comparative approach, she sheds new light on faculty worklife. The author's focus on the criteria of evaluation in academic hiring decisions is a unique contribution and one that should stimulate the current debates on higher education reforms.