Book excerpt: This thesis describes the use of optical absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy in understanding the spatial transport and energy relaxation of excitons in quantum well systems. I discuss the mechanism of carrier-induced changes in the absorption spectrum of a 210A GaAs multiple quantum well, and show that at moderate densities, the enhanced transmission at the heavy-hole exciton energy is due to collision broadening. I also discuss the time dependent and excitation-energy dependent energy shifts of the heavy-hole exciton. I use the changes induced in the absorption spectra due to the presence of carriers as a probe for measuring the spatial transport, and I describe the transport using an ionized-impurity scattering model. I also measure the carrier temperatures from the high energy slopes of the time-resolved photoluminescence spectra, and describe the roles of the carrier temperatures and carrier expansion on the time dynamics of the exciton luminescence intensity. In the last chapter, I study the transport properties of excitons in an asymmetric-coupled quantum well system, and explain the experimental results with a model based on interface-roughness scattering.