diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 3eafeb23..d19747b5 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ If you were relying on the position to match up your optional arguments, this ma
 ## Under the hood
 * Update the default implementation of concat macro to use `||` operator ([#373](https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/dbt-utils/pull/314) from [@ChristopheDuong](https://github.com/ChristopheDuong)). Note this may be a breaking change for adapters that support `concat()` but not `||`, such as Apache Spark.
 - Use `power()` instead of `pow()` in `generate_series()` and `haversine_distance()` as they are synonyms in most SQL dialects, but some dialects only have `power()` ([#354](https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/dbt-utils/pull/354) from [@swanderz](https://github.com/swanderz))
+- Make `get_column_values` return the default value passed as a parameter instead of an empty string before compilation ([#304](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-utils/pull/386) from [@jmriego](https://github.com/jmriego)
 
 # dbt-utils v0.6.6
 
diff --git a/dbt_project.yml b/dbt_project.yml
index e5d5f93a..c2a2c1aa 100644
--- a/dbt_project.yml
+++ b/dbt_project.yml
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 name: 'dbt_utils'
 version: '0.1.0'
 
-require-dbt-version: [">=0.20.0", "<0.21.0"]
+require-dbt-version: [">=0.20.0", "<=1.0.0"]
 
 config-version: 2
 
diff --git a/macros/sql/get_column_values.sql b/macros/sql/get_column_values.sql
index ee457de0..e105b7f0 100644
--- a/macros/sql/get_column_values.sql
+++ b/macros/sql/get_column_values.sql
@@ -3,10 +3,12 @@
 {% endmacro %}
 
 {% macro default__get_column_values(table, column, order_by='count(*) desc', max_records=none, default=none) -%}
-
+{% if default is none %}
+    {% set default = [] %}
+{% endif %}
     {#-- Prevent querying of db in parsing mode. This works because this macro does not create any new refs. #}
     {%- if not execute -%}
-        {{ return('') }}
+        {{ return(default) }}
     {% endif %}
 
     {%- set target_relation = adapter.get_relation(database=table.database,