1,190 research outputs found
The inflation experience of older households
Recent increases in inflation have been accompanied by concerns over the extent to which official figures match the 'true' household experience of inflation. Rapid increases in the prices of household fuel, petrol and diesel and, more recently, of food have brought considerable attention to the fact that inflation will be different for different households according to their expenditure patterns. Any measure of inflation, such as the Retail Prices Index (RPI) or Consumer Prices Index (CPI), is necessarily only an average of the experience of different households and may not be especially representative of what is happening for any household in particular.
Using data from the Expenditure and Food Survey, this Commentary looks at the inflation experience (based on the RPI) for different groups of households, examining how the average inflation rate they face has varied over time and making comparisons across the groups, focusing in particular on pensioner households
The expenditure experience of older households
This commentary examines detailed trends in expenditure patterns between 1995 and 2007, with a particular focus on the pensioner population. Pensioners are not a homogeneous group, but differ widely in both their levels and patterns of spending, and so we look not just at pensioners as a whole but also at pensioners according to age, income, household composition and so on. Spending may tell us something about household welfare that other, often-used measures like incomes do not. In particular, it may be that spending is informative about long-run well-being whereas income is more about current, short-run living standards.
Using data from the Family Expenditure Survey/Expenditure and Food Survey, an annual, cross-sectional study of the spending patterns of 6,000-7,000 households, we look in depth at changes in the level of real expenditures and how spending patterns have changed over time. Then, using data from two waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we examine household fuel expenditures in detail. Fuel is clearly of great current policy concern given recent large increases in the price of domestic fuel that may impact particularly severely on poorer and older households
A survey of the UK benefit system
This paper describes all the main benefits in the UK system, giving details of rates and allowances, as well as numbers and types of claimants and levels of expenditure
Optical spectroscopy of faint gigahertz peaked spectrum sources
We present spectroscopic observations of a sample of faint Gigahertz Peaked
Spectrum (GPS) radio sources drawn from the Westerbork Northern Sky Survey
(WENSS). Redshifts have been determined for 19 (40%) of the objects. The
optical spectra of the GPS sources identified with low redshift galaxies show
deep stellar absorption features. This confirms previous suggestions that their
optical light is not significantly contaminated by AGN-related emission, but is
dominated by a population of old (>9 Gyr) and metal-rich (>0.2 [Fe/H]) stars,
justifying the use of these (probably) young radio sources as probes of galaxy
evolution. The optical spectra of GPS sources identified with quasars are
indistinguishable from those of flat spectrum quasars, and clearly different
from the spectra of Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) quasars. The redshift
distribution of the GPS quasars in our radio-faint sample is comparable to that
of the bright samples presented in the literature, peaking at z ~ 2-3. It is
unlikely that a significant population of low redshift GPS quasars is missed
due to selection effects in our sample. We therefore claim that there is a
genuine difference between the redshift distributions of GPS galaxies and
quasars, which, because it is present in both the radio-faint and bright
samples, can not be due to a redshift-luminosity degeneracy. It is therefore
unlikely that the GPS quasars and galaxies are unified by orientation, unless
the quasar opening angle is a strong function of redshift. We suggest that the
GPS quasars and galaxies are unrelated populations and just happen to have
identical observed radio-spectral properties, and hypothesise that GPS quasars
are a sub-class of flat spectrum quasars.Comment: LaTeX, 13 pages. Accepted by MNRAS. For related papers see
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~snelle
Environment of compact extragalactic radio sources
We have studied the interrelation of young AGN with their hosts. The objects
of study are the young and powerful GPS and CSS radio sources. Due to their
small size, GPS and CSS sources are excellent probes of this relation.
Furhthermore, their young age allows us to compare them to the larger, old
radio sources and establish a time-line evolution of this relation. Combining
imaging and spectroscopy at UV, optical and radio wavelengths we find evidence
of strong interaction between the host and the radio source. The presence and
expansion of the radio source clearly affects the properties and evolution of
the host. Furthermore, the radio source and host significantly affect each
other's evolution. We describe our results and how these interactions take
place.Comment: 6 pages. To appear in "Highlights of Spanisg astrophysics IV.
Proceedings of the VII scientific meeting of the Spanish Astronomical
Society". Editors: F. Figueras, J.M. Girart, M.Hernanz, C. Jordi. Springe
The Relationship Between Beam Power and Radio Power for Classical Double Radio Sources
Beam power is a fundamental parameter that describes, in part, the state of a
supermassive black hole system. Determining the beam powers of powerful
classical double radio sources requires substantial observing time, so it would
be useful to determine the relationship between beam power and radio power so
that radio power could be used as a proxy for beam power. A sample of 31
powerful classical double radio sources with previously determined beam and
radio powers are studied; the sources have redshifts between about 0.056 and
1.8. It is found that the relationship between beam power, Lj, and radio power,
P, is well described by Log(Lj) = 0.84 Log(P) + 2.15, where both L_j and P are
in units of 10^(44) erg/s. This indicates that beam power is converted to radio
power with an efficiency of about 0.7%. The ratio of beam power to radio power
is studied as a function of redshift; there is no significant evidence for
redshift evolution of this ratio over the redshift range studied. The
relationship is consistent with empirical results obtained by Cavagnolo et al.
(2010) for radio sources in gas rich environments, which are primarily FRI
sources, and with the theoretical predictions of Willott et al. (1999).Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in MNRA
Tracing jet--ISM interaction in young AGN: correlations between [OIII] 5007 and 5-GHz emission
*AIMS: To study the interaction between young AGN and their host galaxies
based on their ionized gas and radio emission, and to analyze possible
implications for the radio galaxy evolution.
*METHODS: The [OIII] 5007 line and 5-GHz radio properties are compared and
studied on a large, representative sample of GPS and CSS (i.e., young) quasars
and radio galaxies as well as large-scale sources using [OIII] 5007 line and
5-GHz radio data from literature and our observations.
*RESULTS: Several correlations between the [OIII] 5007 line and 5-GHz radio
emission have been found. The main result is that the [OIII] 5007 emission is
strongly related to the GPS/CSS source size indicating that the [OIII] 5007
emission is clearly enhanced by the jet expansion through the host galaxy ISM.
Shocks are the most likely enhancing mechanism, although jet-induced star
formation could also be, partly, responsible for the [OIII] 5007 emission. The
data also suggests a possible deceleration of the jet as it grows. In this
case, however, the correlation is weak.Comment: Accepted by A&
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