We present a detailed derivation of the equations of evolution for the reduced densityrnoperators (or the master equations) of coherently driven degenerate and nondegeneraternthree-level lasers. Employing these equations we investigate the squeezing and statisticalrnproperties of the light generated by both types of lasers. In both cases, we find that thernlinear gain coefficient and the strength of the driving radiation highly affects the squeezingrnand the statistical properties of the light