“Bankruptcy Rates among NFL Players With Short-Lived Income Spikes”, 2015-05-01 (; backlinks):
We test for consumption smoothing using bankruptcy data on players in the National Football League (NFL), who typically earn several million dollars during an income spike that lasts a few years. The life-cycle hypothesis predicts that players should save substantially while playing and then have little risk of bankruptcy post-NFL.
However, players in our sample begin to file for bankruptcy soon after they stop playing and continue filing at a high rate through at least the first 12 years of retirement.
Players’ total earnings and career lengths have surprisingly little effect on the risk of bankruptcy.