Hibernate hbm2ddl.auto default value [duplicate]

That is really the answer: no validation, no update, no creation and no dropping takes place when omitting the setting from your configuration. The hibernate source code is the best documentation on Hibernate:

// from org.hibernate.cfg.SettingsFactory line 332 (hibernate-core-3.6.7)      
String autoSchemaExport = properties.getProperty(Environment.HBM2DDL_AUTO);
if ( "validate".equals(autoSchemaExport) ) settings.setAutoValidateSchema(true);
if ( "update".equals(autoSchemaExport) ) settings.setAutoUpdateSchema(true);
if ( "create".equals(autoSchemaExport) ) settings.setAutoCreateSchema(true);
if ( "create-drop".equals(autoSchemaExport) ) {
  settings.setAutoCreateSchema(true);
  settings.setAutoDropSchema(true);
}