Abstract:
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their cosmic growth are fundamental components of galaxies. They are essential for our understanding of galaxy evolution, as indicated by the tight relation between the masses of SMBHs and the properties of the galaxies spheroid component. Constraints on the nature of this link can be gained from observations of the redshift evolution of this relation, employing type 1 AGN. However, these observations are inevitably affected by selection effects. I will present and discuss a framework to study and model these effects.  Applying it to literature studies, no statistically significant evidence for evolution in the black hole-bulge relations is found. As knowledge of the underlying AGN distribution functions is crucial for this
analysis, I will also present results for the local AGN luminosity function, active black hole mass function and the distribution function of the accretion
rates.