One of the most accurate theories of semiconductor absorption and photoluminescence is provided by the SBEs and SLEs, respectively. Both of them are systematically derived starting from the many-body/quantum-optical system Hamiltonian and fully describe the resulting quantum dynamics of optical and quantum-optical observables such as optical polarization (SBEs) and photoluminescence intensity (SLEs). All relevant many-body effects can be systematically included by using various techniques such as the cluster-expansion approach.