Academic staff mobility across higher education institutions and issues of inbreeding

In this chapter we discuss the consequences of inbreeding - the policy of employment by universities of their own graduates - both at individual and system levels. Inbreeding is a very puzzling phenomena: while there is mixed and somewhat controversial evidence of the impact of inbreeding on individual productivity, there is also no consensus in policy circles on whether inbreeding should be supported or banned or simply ignored in university employment policies. Inbreeding is tightly related to a broader phenomenon - academic mobility. We discuss the role of academic mobility in the general organization of national academic systems and explain why different levels of academic mobility may co-exist within one system and what individual characteristics are associated with higher-lower mobility. We also focus on the consequences of low academic mobility as well as some policy measures that may be implemented to improve mobility both at the national and international levels.