A comprehensive study of exclusive hadronic B-meson decays into final states containing two pseudoscalar mesons (PP) or a pseudoscalar and a vector meson (PV) is presented. The decay amplitudes are calculated at leading power in Lambda_{QCD}/m_b and at next-to-leading order in alpha_s using the QCD factorization approach. The calculation of the relevant hard-scattering kernels is completed. Important classes of power corrections, including ``chirally-enhanced'' terms and weak annihilation contributions, are estimated and included in the phenomenological analysis. Predictions are presented for the branching ratios of the complete set of the 96 decays of B^-, B^0, and B_s mesons into PP and PV final states, and for most of the corresponding CP asymmetries. Several decays and observables of particular phenomenological interest are discussed in detail, including the magnitudes of the penguin amplitudes in PP and PV final states, an analysis of the pi-rho system, and the time-dependent CP asymmetry in the K phi and K eta' final states.

Comment: 92 pages, 13 figures, 28 tables; typos and errors in data tables corrected; version to appear in Nuclear Physics B