Informative Absence Under Information Asymmetry The Expectation–Absence Detection–Inference (EADI) Model A Conceptual Framework

In evaluations under information asymmetry, missing information can be more revealing than what is presented. This paper pulls together three usually separate research traditions—disclosure economics, audit methodology, and intelligence analysis—and formalises the common cognitive structure they share as the Expectation–Absence Detection–Inference (EADI) model. The model breaks absence- based inference into three stages: forming a defensible expectation, detecting its violation, and validating whether that absence genuinely says something about counterpart quality. The core argument is straightforward: absence signals are reliable only when the expectation is defensible, shared by the counterpart, and externally verifiable. These conditions are tough to meet. Outside formal disclosure regimes they rarely hold. The model offers a structured vocabulary for an evaluation practice that managers use constantly but that the literature has not properly theorised. The implications bite hardest for Taiwanese firms operating across divergent regulatory and cultural environments—exactly the settings where what counts as a "missing" document or signal is most contested. Testable propositions round out the framework. Keywords: informative absence, expectation formation, voluntary disclosure, completeness assertion, information asymmetry, cognitive bias JEL Classification: D81, D82, G32, M10