Sentence:  `` In August our dealers sold 13 % more farm machinery than a year earlier and in September retail sales <WSD>were</WSD> 14 % higher than last year '' , says Mark V. Keeler , farm equipment vice president of International Harvester Co. . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)