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Abstract
The first part of the paper asks the question of the use of the land rent theory in economies where the price of agricultural land has been increasing for more than twenty years at a rate much higher than the agricultural income. After mentioning the synthesis brought by Herdt and Cochrane for the United States ' situation, the author classifies the most frequent arguments, called for to explain this divergence between agricultural income and land price, intho three groups : those resulting from agricultural production conditions ; those coming from the development of urban, industrial and touristic infrastructures ; and thirdly those expressing a land assets preference in a period of rapid change. The second part presents a study on the evolution of agricultural land ownership distribution. It is an indirect approach made through statistics on tenanted areas. Thus perceived, the evolution is interpreted by reference to three types of effects : a structural effect referring to farmers ' property inheritance ; a farmers' competition effect and an urban effect. The author concludes by emphasizing the inequality of the distribution of savings ' transfers from the agricultural sector to the others made by the way of the land market.