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I have looked at a number of academic resumes to get a feeling for what people expect. I see that the number of referees that people give at the bottom of their resume varies quite a bit.

My question is whether it is essentially always better to provide more referees or whether one should rather stick to a maximum of say 4 ?

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I would not include any names in the CV itself; only the sentence "References are available on request." If you do decide to list your references, the last sentence on your CV should be "Additional references are available on request." – JeffE Sep 21 '12 at 21:41
@JeffE thanks a lot for your comment ! What would be your rationale not to include them on the CV ? – Beltrame Sep 21 '12 at 21:58
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If you're sending your CV as part of a job application that asks for names in advance and your references have agreed to write letters for that application, then I think it's okay to include them in the copy you apply with. But if you're just maintaining an up-to-date CV on your web page, leave them off. – JeffE Sep 21 '12 at 22:07

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I assume you are creating your CV for some application (job or graduate studies). I understand that having three to four good referees is good enough. You need not provide more than that. I am particularly speaking about the academia in US and I believe it would be different elsewhere (e.g. UK).

Of course you may put different referees according to the requirement. I mean you may need to create different CVs for different occasions. Some referees would be better able to acknowledge your work for a given situation. For example you may need to take a recommendation letter from a (for example) Mathematics teacher when applying for graduate studies in Math.

In fact I have also seen that many people do not put the references. In an application process, they are required to separately provide the names and contacts of the referees.

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For entry level professorships I have had requests for between 2 (second tier school with no established research groups) and 5 (first class research group at a R1 in a desirable climate), with 3 being by far the most common. Adds requesting high numbers are often seeking stars and will often state that they will consider tenured placement for qualified applicants.

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