The Hot Big Bang model does not predict perturbations in the matter distribution of our Universe. The origin of the large scale structure, such as planets, stars and galaxies is not known. Further, we do not know how big the Universe is, how old, or what its main constituents are. There are a group of early Universe models which predict primordial fluctuations in the Universe, and using the most popular of these, 'inflation', the preliminary results of precision cosmology are giving the first glimpse of values for these mysterious quantities. The cosmic microwave background radiation gives us a 'snapshot' of the very early Universe, an invaluable source of cosmological information. The Microwave Anisotropy probe (MAP) and the Planck Surveyor satellite will provide a map of the distribution of the cosmic microwave background over the sky, with a resolution approximately two orders of magnitude better than the previous satellite with a similar goal, which was the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE), launched in the late 1980s. The aim of this thesis is to develop statistical tools to compare and contrast the predictions of early Universe models with respect to their predictions of the distribution of the cosmic microwave background radiation, as well as to garner information about cosmological parameters from the upcoming data.